ABSTRACT
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has become an indispensable tool due to its ability to image and manipulate matter at the nanometer scale in air, liquid, or vacuum. The AFM uses a micromachined silicon or silicon nitride probe mounted on a flexible cantilever that can sense or generate forces between the probe tip and a sample surface. Carbon nanotubes are, in many respects, ideal high-resolution probe tips for AFM. Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders formed from rolled-up graphene sheets that can be up to microns in length. Smalley’s group reported the first example of the use of carbon nanotubes as scanning probe tips in 1996. Carbon nanotubes hold great promise in many areas of science and technology due to their unique physical properties and molecular-scale dimensions. A significant technological advance for these materials has been their incorporation as specific molecular transducers in nanosensors, molecular electronics, and as molecular manipulation tools.
