{"id":534740,"date":"2026-07-05T21:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/534740\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T21:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:35:10","slug":"seeing-bacteria-nanoprisms-and-more-with-an-atomic-force-microscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/534740\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Bacteria, Nanoprisms, And More With An Atomic Force Microscope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike almost every other kind of microscope, atomic-force microscopes (AFMs) don\u2019t use any kind of optical beam to image their subjects. Instead, they physically detect the subject\u2019s surface with a tiny probe, repeating this thousands of times to build up a height map of the subject, sometimes with a resolution below a single nanometer. [Ben Krasnow] got to use an AFM in an investigation of one of his projects, and shared some unusual uses of it in his latest video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For his first demonstration, [Ben] took a video of the probe head in action. Since the probe oscillates at nine kilohertz, this was less straightforward than it sounds, but a stroboscopic welding camera<\/a> filming near that frequency could visualize its motion. The next project was to image some biological samples, particularly bacteria. First, [Ben] let the bacteria from natt\u014d (fermented soybeans) multiply in a sterile growth medium, then centrifuged and washed them.<\/p>\n

He spin-coated a thin layer of gelatine onto part of a silicon wafer, which provided a very flat substrate. The gelatine is electrostatically attracted to the bacteria, adhering them to the slide and letting [Ben] wash away other contaminants. This let the AFM image the bacteria clearly, even revealing how a spin-coating step had oriented them all in the same direction.<\/p>\n

[Ben] also imaged a few other samples, including silver nanoprisms and track-etched membranes. Track-etched membranes use high-energy radiation and an etchant to cut very consistent, fine holes into a plastic filtration membrane. Finally, [Ben] used it to image his laser-etched diffraction gratings<\/a>; to find out how the laser had created these diffraction patterns, he tried to selectively etch away the laser-exposed metal, using the AFM to verify that this metal had been stripped away. Neither an acidic nor a basic etch worked, but electrochemical etching seemed promising.<\/p>\n

If after seeing this you want your own atomic force microscope, we\u2019ve seen<\/a> a few DIY AFMs<\/a>, including one which can resolve individual atoms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thanks to [H Hack] for the tip!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlike almost every other kind of microscope, atomic-force microscopes (AFMs) don\u2019t use any kind of optical beam to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-534740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}