The Application of Atomic Force Microscopy to the Characterization of Industrial Polymer Materials

MRS Bulletin ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 464-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg K. Bar ◽  
Gregory F. Meyers

AbstractAtomic force microscopy (AFM) is now well established among the tools of choice for the analysis and characterization of materials.Applications of AFM span many industries including chemicals, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors.Advancements in AFM instrumentation over the last five years have expanded the range of application of this technology to investigate thermal and mechanical properties of complex materials at high spatial resolution as well as structural and morphological characterization of materials subjected to thermal and mechanical stresses.In particular, this has been an enabling technology for an improved understanding of structure–property relationships in polymeric materials including homopolymers, blends, impact-modified polymer systems, porous polymer systems, and semicrystalline polymers.Practical examples illustrate applications of contact, tapping-mode, phase-imaging, hot-stage, and scanning thermal methods for the characterization of modern industrial polymer materials.

Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phuong Nguyen-Tri ◽  
Payman Ghassemi ◽  
Pascal Carriere ◽  
Sonil Nanda ◽  
Aymen Amine Assadi ◽  
...  

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been extensively used for the nanoscale characterization of polymeric materials. The coupling of AFM with infrared spectroscope (AFM-IR) provides another advantage to the chemical analyses and thus helps to shed light upon the study of polymers. This paper reviews some recent progress in the application of AFM and AFM-IR in polymer science. We describe the principle of AFM-IR and the recent improvements to enhance its resolution. We also discuss the latest progress in the use of AFM-IR as a super-resolution correlated scanned-probe infrared spectroscopy for the chemical characterization of polymer materials dealing with polymer composites, polymer blends, multilayers, and biopolymers. To highlight the advantages of AFM-IR, we report several results in studying the crystallization of both miscible and immiscible blends as well as polymer aging. Finally, we demonstrate how this novel technique can be used to determine phase separation, spherulitic structure, and crystallization mechanisms at nanoscales, which has never been achieved before. The review also discusses future trends in the use of AFM-IR in polymer materials, especially in polymer thin film investigation.


Author(s):  
Phuong Nguyen-Tri ◽  
Payman Ghassemin ◽  
Pascal Carriere ◽  
Aymen Amine Assadi ◽  
Dinh Duc Nguyen

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been extensively used for the nanoscale characterization of polymeric materials. The coupling of AFM with infrared spectroscope (AFM-IR) provides another advantage to the chemical analyses and thus helps to shed light upon the study of polymers. In this perspective paper, we review recent progress in the use of AFM-IR in polymer science. We describe first the principle of AFM-IR and the recent improvements to enhance its resolution. We discuss then the last progress in the use of AFM-IR as a super-resolution correlated scanned-probe IR spectroscopy for chemical characterization of polymer materials dealing with polymer composites, polymer blends, multilayers and biopolymers. To highlight the advantages of AFM-IR, we report here several results in studying crystallization of both miscible and immiscible blends as well as polymer aging. Then, we demonstrate how this novel technique can be used to determine phase separation, spherulitic structure and crystallization mechanisms at the nanoscale, which have never been achieved before. The review also discusses future trends in the use of AFM-IR in polymer materials, especially in polymer thin film investigation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Wall ◽  
Sergei Magonov ◽  
Sergey Belikov ◽  
John Alexander

ABSTRACTCapabilities of Atomic Force Microscopy in different modes including Electric Force Microscopy and Kelvin Force Microscopy are reviewed and illustrated on several samples including organic photovoltaics (P3HT/PCBM, PEDOT:PSS). Compositional mapping of these blends is enhanced with a combined use of the modes, and variations of local electric properties are detected down to the nanometer scale. The revealed morphology will assist in development of comprehensive models accounting for the structure-property relationship in solar cells and related devices.


Nanoscale ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 7950-7959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yousuke Kikuchi ◽  
Nozomu Obana ◽  
Masanori Toyofuku ◽  
Noriyuki Kodera ◽  
Takamitsu Soma ◽  
...  

This study provides a new methodology using phase imaging for quantitative single-vesicle physical characterization of extracellular bacterial membrane vesicles.


Author(s):  
Willian Silva Conceição ◽  
Ştefan Ţălu ◽  
Robert Saraiva Matos ◽  
Glenda Quaresma Ramos ◽  
Fidel Guereiro Zayas ◽  
...  

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