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A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid

A quartz tuning fork (QTF) has been widely used as a force sensor of the frequency modulation atomic force microscope due to its ultrahigh stiffness, high quality factor and self-sensing nature. However, due to the bulky structure and exposed surface electrode arrangement, its application is limited...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Yingxu, Li, Yingzi, Song, Zihang, Lin, Rui, Chen, Yifu, Qian, Jianqiang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5982565/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29783740
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18051628
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author Zhang, Yingxu
Li, Yingzi
Song, Zihang
Lin, Rui
Chen, Yifu
Qian, Jianqiang
author_facet Zhang, Yingxu
Li, Yingzi
Song, Zihang
Lin, Rui
Chen, Yifu
Qian, Jianqiang
author_sort Zhang, Yingxu
collection PubMed
description A quartz tuning fork (QTF) has been widely used as a force sensor of the frequency modulation atomic force microscope due to its ultrahigh stiffness, high quality factor and self-sensing nature. However, due to the bulky structure and exposed surface electrode arrangement, its application is limited, especially in liquid imaging of in situ biological samples, ionic liquids, electrochemical reaction, etc. Although the complication can be resolved by coating insulating materials on the QTF surface and then immersing the whole QTF into the liquid, it would result in a sharp drop of the quality factor, which will reduce the sensitivity of the QTF. To solve the problem, a novel method, called the balanced trolling quartz tuning fork (BT-QTF), is introduced here. In this method, two same probes are glued on both prongs of the QTF separately while only one probe immersed in the liquid. With the method, the hydrodynamic interaction can be reduced, thus the BT-QTF can retain a high quality factor and constant resonance frequency. The stable small vibration of the BT-QTF can be achieved in the liquid. Initially, a theoretical model is presented to analyze the sensing performance of the BT-QTF in the liquid. Then, the sensing performance analysis experiments of the BT-QTF have been performed. At last, the proposed method is applied to atomic force microscope imaging different samples in the liquid, which proves its feasibility.
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spelling pubmed-59825652018-06-05 A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid Zhang, Yingxu Li, Yingzi Song, Zihang Lin, Rui Chen, Yifu Qian, Jianqiang Sensors (Basel) Article A quartz tuning fork (QTF) has been widely used as a force sensor of the frequency modulation atomic force microscope due to its ultrahigh stiffness, high quality factor and self-sensing nature. However, due to the bulky structure and exposed surface electrode arrangement, its application is limited, especially in liquid imaging of in situ biological samples, ionic liquids, electrochemical reaction, etc. Although the complication can be resolved by coating insulating materials on the QTF surface and then immersing the whole QTF into the liquid, it would result in a sharp drop of the quality factor, which will reduce the sensitivity of the QTF. To solve the problem, a novel method, called the balanced trolling quartz tuning fork (BT-QTF), is introduced here. In this method, two same probes are glued on both prongs of the QTF separately while only one probe immersed in the liquid. With the method, the hydrodynamic interaction can be reduced, thus the BT-QTF can retain a high quality factor and constant resonance frequency. The stable small vibration of the BT-QTF can be achieved in the liquid. Initially, a theoretical model is presented to analyze the sensing performance of the BT-QTF in the liquid. Then, the sensing performance analysis experiments of the BT-QTF have been performed. At last, the proposed method is applied to atomic force microscope imaging different samples in the liquid, which proves its feasibility. MDPI 2018-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5982565/ /pubmed/29783740 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18051628 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Zhang, Yingxu
Li, Yingzi
Song, Zihang
Lin, Rui
Chen, Yifu
Qian, Jianqiang
A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid
title A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid
title_full A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid
title_fullStr A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid
title_full_unstemmed A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid
title_short A High-Q AFM Sensor Using a Balanced Trolling Quartz Tuning Fork in the Liquid
title_sort high-q afm sensor using a balanced trolling quartz tuning fork in the liquid
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5982565/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29783740
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18051628
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