ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the main principles of Scanning Electron Tunneling (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) and describes the most generally used techniques. It also presents some applications on micro- and nanofibers. Since many different kinds of interactions can be measured between the probe and the sample, a large variety of techniques were developed. The three main parts of an STM are the probe, a conductive tip, a piezoelectric scanner, and a control unit. A measurement head contains a support on which a soft microcantilever with an ultra-fine tip at its end is mounted and an optical detection system enables the measurement of the deflection of the cantilever. In the “constant force” mode, the cantilever deflection signal is measured while the sample is raster scanned under the tip. Combining AFM and nanoindentation, several authors have studied the hardness and the elastic modulus of metallic and semiconducting nanowires. Lateral force microscopy was also used to measure the mechanical properties of nanowires.
