Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/K19082/01
Title:	TIP-SURFACE INTERACTIONS IN SCANNING PROBE MICROSCOPY
Principal Investigator:	Welland, Professor M
Other Investigators:	Pethica, Professor J
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Engineering
Organisation:	University of Cambridge
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	17 October 1994	Ends:	16 October 1997	Value (£):	128,440
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Surfaces & Interfaces
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
The aim of the proposed research is to investigate both the mechanical response and conduction properties of point contacts. A direct application of this work is to obtain a deeper understanding of the imaging mechanisms and resolution limits in atomic force microscopy (AFM). The determination of the true contact area (or the effective interaction area if the tip is not touching the surface) is perhaps the most significant problem in AFM at present. Studies of friction, adhesion, lubrication, surface mechanical response and the AFM imaging mechanisms all involve a knowledge of the contact area.The proposed research will extend the current work being undertaken at Oxford and Cambridge in which a force is applied to the AFM probe and displacements measured. This is different to the normal AFM configuration in which displacements are both applied and measured with the forces acting on the tip being inferred from the nominally known spring constants of the system. By using an applied force the contact compliance can be found directly, from which the tip-sample contact area can be calculated. Recent results obtained in air and in liquids show that the technique will prove to be very fruitful. It is apparent however that surface contaminants greatly complicate the interpretation of the data taken in air and the proposed research will be undertaken in more controlled environments.
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