Latest AFM probe Stories

University of Pennsylvania Wear is a fact of life. As surfaces rub against one another, they break down and lose their original shape. With less material to start with and functionality that often depends critically on shape and surface structure, wear affects nanoscale objects more strongly than it does their macroscale counterparts. Worse, the mechanisms behind wear processes are better understood for things like car engines than nanotech devices. But now, researchers at the...

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign One of the most promising innovations of nanotechnology has been the ability to perform rapid nanofabrication using nanometer-scale tips. The fabrication speed can be dramatically increased by using heat.  High speed and high temperature have been known to degrade the tip… until now. “Thermal processing is widely used in manufacturing,” according to William King, the College of Engineering Bliss Professor at Illinois. “We have been...