ABSTRACT
Imaging of surfaces with resolution beyond the diffraction limit of light was limited to the various avors of electron microscopes, which required special conditions such as a vacuum environment and samples bearing good electronscattering elements. A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip was placed the foil to sense tiny de ections as the tip scanned over a surface. Atomic force microscope (AFM) is aptly named a force microscope due to the fact that an image is created through tip–sample forces transferred to the bending of the cantilever. Two forces generally act on an AFM cantilever: forces due to interaction with the substrate, and random forces due to thermal motion of the surrounding molecules of the medium. Improving procedures for linking only individual molecules to cantilever tips will greatly advance this technique from a specialized tool to a robust method for determining the fundamental parameters of intermolecular bonds.
