Atomic Force Microscopes for
the Study of Protein Motion
T.E. Schaeffer*, M. Viani,
D.A. Walters, B. Drake, and P.K.
Hansma
This is an abstract
for a talk to be given at the
Fifth
Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology.
There will be a link from here to the full article when it is
available on the web.
Thermal motion of the cantilever is a fundamental limit for
resolving processes with the atomic force microscope. Smaller
cantilevers reduce this thermal noise in a given measurement
bandwidth and allow low-noise and high-speed measurements. We
have developed a series of atomic force microscopes for small
cantilevers with optical lever detection and a focused spot size
of 1.6 �m. These atomic force microscopes can operate
cantilevers with lengths below 5 �m and thicknesses below 200
nm, cantilevers an order of magnitude smaller than what is
currently available. We plan to apply these new microscopes to
the study of proteins, Nature's nanomachines.
This work was supported by a training grant of the University
of California, and by grant number NSF-DMR9622169 from the
Materials Research Division of the National Science Foundation.
*Corresponding Address:
Tilman E. Schaeffer, Department of Physics, University of
California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, ph: 805-893-3999, fax:
805-893-8315, email: [email protected]
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