AL Tapping into new applications
Recently a lot of progress has been made in understanding how an AFM interacts with a sample, and that impacts what can be measured. Newer technology, such as Bruker’s PeakForce Tapping mode, simply put, can explore materials at high resolution without damaging the surface. As an example, Mueller mentions that scientists from Brown University (Providence, RI) and General Motors (Detroit, MI) worked with Bruker to study lithium-ion batteries.3
“AFM with PeakForce Tapping was used
to look at the solid electrolyte interphase—SEI layer—above a silicon anode,” Mueller says. This surface is very soft, and is typically damaged by other SPM modes. Nonetheless, these scientists explored the surface in situ and in operando at the nanoscale, and revealed cracking that helps explain the key issue of battery degradation. With this imaging technol- ogy, scientists can correlate a battery’s efficiency with its structure and how that structure changes from charging and discharging—helping them work toward longer-lifetime, higher-capacity batteries.
In addition, different energy applications can require different capa- bilities of AFM. For example, scientists studying artificial photosynthesis make measurements in liquid. For this, Bruker developed AFM probes that are insulated at all points except the tip.4
“A very small tip sticks out
and gets much better than 100-nanometer spatial resolution in scanning electrochemical—SECM—measurements,” Mueller says. With this probe, scientists can measure conductivity just above the surface of a material
SPM can reveal the structure of many samples, such as boron nitride, shown here. (Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy.)
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AMERICAN LABORATORY 29 JUNE/JULY 2017
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