Atomic force microscope

The chemical force microscopy (English Chemical Force Microscopy; abbreviation CFM ) is a modification of the developed in 1986 by Gerd Binnig, Calvin Quate and Christoph Gerber, Atomic force microscope ( Atomic Force Microscope, AFM ) for mechanically and chemically sensitive imaging of surfaces at the nanometer scale. To this end, instead of a classical AFM tip, a chemically defined modified probe tip used for imaging. With simultaneous use of an imaging medium, for example water or hexadecane, occur only very specific interactions between the tip and surface, which allows high chemical specificity of the map is obtained. The chemical sensitivity based on high resolution makes the chemical force microscopy is a unique tool of surface science with great potential for development.