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Development and Applications of Force Microscopy Techniques

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Advanced Materials Characterization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2021) | Viewed by 8145

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada and Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Interests: atomic force microscopy; magnetic force microscopy; nanomagnetism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development of the family of scanning probe microscopes (SPM) started in 1981 with the invention of the STM (scanning tunneling microscope).

In 1986, atomic force microscopy (AFM) was developed and since then, due to its versatility in measuring interactions of different origins at the nanoscale, it has become a very powerful tool for characterizing a large variety of nanomaterials, such as nanoparticles, nanowires, low dimensional materials and biological samples such as molecules, viruses or proteins.

Frequently denoted as scanning force microscopy (SFM), these techniques can be used not only as a tool for topography acquisition but also to detect a widespread variety of interactions, such as magnetic interaction, chemical forces, mechanical properties, electronic transport properties, surface potential, and thermal gradients with extraordinary sensitivity and resolution.

In summary, this Special Issue is open to any contributions describing novel developments in any of the aspects of force microscopy from experiments and instrumentation to theory.

Dr. Miriam Jaafar Ruiz-Castellanos
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • atomic force mircoscopy
  • nanoscale
  • Kelvin probe force micrsocopy
  • magnetic force microscopy
  • atomic resolution

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 6367 KiB  
Article
Kelvin Probe Microscopy Investigation of Poly-Octylthiophene Aggregates
by Joaquin Bermejo, Jaime Colchero and Elisa Palacios-Lidon
Materials 2022, 15(3), 1212; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15031212 - 6 Feb 2022
Viewed by 1912
Abstract
Conductive polymers have fundamental relevance as well as novel technological applications in the organic optoelectronics field. Their photophysical and transport properties strongly depend on the molecular arrangement, and nanoscale characterization is needed to fully understand the optoelectronic processes taking place in organic devices. [...] Read more.
Conductive polymers have fundamental relevance as well as novel technological applications in the organic optoelectronics field. Their photophysical and transport properties strongly depend on the molecular arrangement, and nanoscale characterization is needed to fully understand the optoelectronic processes taking place in organic devices. In this work, we study the electrostatic properties of poly-3-octylthiophene isolated structures: disordered low-packed polymer chains and crystalline layered lamellar assemblies. We characterize the electronic ground state using Kelvin probe microscopy. This allows us to resolve a rich variety of surface potential regions that emerge over the different polymer structures. These SP regions are correlated with different molecular aggregates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development and Applications of Force Microscopy Techniques)
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9 pages, 2043 KiB  
Article
Evidence of Skyrmion-Tube Mediated Magnetization Reversal in Modulated Nanowires
by E. Berganza, J. Marqués-Marchán, C. Bran, M. Vazquez, A. Asenjo and M. Jaafar
Materials 2021, 14(19), 5671; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14195671 - 29 Sep 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2531
Abstract
Magnetic nanowires, conceived as individual building blocks for spintronic devices, constitute a well-suited model to design and study magnetization reversal processes, or to tackle fundamental questions, such as the presence of topologically protected magnetization textures under particular conditions. Recently, a skyrmion-tube mediated magnetization [...] Read more.
Magnetic nanowires, conceived as individual building blocks for spintronic devices, constitute a well-suited model to design and study magnetization reversal processes, or to tackle fundamental questions, such as the presence of topologically protected magnetization textures under particular conditions. Recently, a skyrmion-tube mediated magnetization reversal process was theoretically reported in diameter modulated cylindrical nanowires. In these nanowires, a vortex nucleates at the end of the segments with larger diameter and propagates, resulting in a first switching of the nanowire core magnetization at small fields. In this work, we show experimental evidence of the so-called Bloch skyrmion-tubes, using advanced Magnetic Force Microscopy modes to image the magnetization reversal process of FeCoCu diameter modulated nanowires. By monitoring the magnetic state of the nanowire during applied field sweeping, a detected drop of magnetic signal at a given critical field unveils the presence of a skyrmion-tube, due to mutually compensating stray field components. That evidences the presence of a skyrmion-tube as an intermediate stage during the magnetization reversal, whose presence is related to the geometrical dimensions of the cylindrical segments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development and Applications of Force Microscopy Techniques)
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9 pages, 2657 KiB  
Article
A Magnetic Force Microscopy Study of Patterned T-Shaped Structures
by Elis Helena de Campos Pinto Sinnecker, José Miguel García-Martín, Dora Altbir, José D’Albuquerque e Castro and João Paulo Sinnecker
Materials 2021, 14(6), 1567; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14061567 - 23 Mar 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2332
Abstract
The study of patterned magnetic elements that can sustain more than one bit of the information is an important research line for developing new routes in magnetic storage and magnetic logic devices. Previous Monte Carlo studies of T-shaped magnetic nanostructures revealed the equilibrium [...] Read more.
The study of patterned magnetic elements that can sustain more than one bit of the information is an important research line for developing new routes in magnetic storage and magnetic logic devices. Previous Monte Carlo studies of T-shaped magnetic nanostructures revealed the equilibrium and evolution of magnetic states that could be found as a result of the strong configurational anisotropy of these systems. In this work, for the first time, such behavior of T-shaped magnetic nanostructures is experimentally studied. In particular, T-shaped Co nanostructures have been produced by electron beam lithography using a single step lift-off process over Si substrates. The existence of four magnetic stable states has been proven by Magnetic Force Microscopy (MFM) and the analysis was complemented by Micromagnetic Simulations. The results confirmed that even for what can be considered large structures, with μm sizes, such four stable magnetic states can be achieved, and therefore two magnetic bits of information can be stored. We also addressed how to write and read those bits. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development and Applications of Force Microscopy Techniques)
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