"Not much to see" is definitely true for people familiar with the technology. But that zoomout shot was epic! Even going out of focus it gave an awesome sense of scale for what's going on. Nice work!
Yea it looks so tiny while it is flapping back and forth but then when he zooms out you realize JUST HOW SMALL that is. I do some nanoparticle research, and sometimes I forget that when I can actually see what looks like a tiny speck of dust that speck is actually a cluster of thousands of particles once I get it under the scope.
I literally laughed out loud when you did the zoom out shot from the microscope. When you start seeing features that you recognize, it really gives scale to just how small that probe is! I have a conceptual understanding of how small something like a transistor is, but seeing something that small that has been manufactured so precisely is amazing!
HDD platters store data magnetically, the HDD needle/read+write head hovers approximately 10nm above the surface (it basically 'floats' on the static layer of air [or helium in newer high capacity drives] that is stuck to the rotating platter surface [also called a boundary layer]) I'm sad to say there is, as as far as I know, nothing physical about the data storage process utilized by [modern?] HDDs (except the rotation of the platters and the motion of the r+w heads, but I was mainly referring to data storage and reproduction, which are both completely non-corporial processes [meaning nothing physically actually touches]) I think a scan of the HDD platter surface would probably look identical to the scan of the glass slide from yesterday's AFM episode. That is almost entirely flat and homogeneous.
Wow, that recording of the probe is amazing. It scans across so fast. I mean, you can see that from how fast it generates each line of the image but it didn't really sink in how fast it was moving till that shot
To start with I thought "wait, ngauge make a nscope" ...but foolin us! That microscope shot of the scanning probe is awesome! Puts things in way better context than I got from the first video...
getting to love your channel more and more. Thanks for sharing! I'm a biologist and would love to see some different spider silks scanned like tarantula vs trapdoor silk as they use their silk for the same purpose but are separated by millions of years of evolution. I'd be happy to provide some prepared slides from my lab.
Oh that's awesome! Yeah I'd love to try and image that if you don't mind sharing some! Do you know what the average size of the filaments are? Shoot me an email: info@breakingtaps.com ❤
Adding to the list! I have an optical flat around here somewhere, although it's probably pretty scratched up from shop use :) And I have a number of high quality uncoated quartz mirrors, λ/4 to λ/20 iirc? which I'll take a look at! Pretty sure I have a (small) coated parabolic mirror in the optics box too... will see!
Awesome work as always! Few ideas off the top of my head: galvanized steel with a clear macro grain structure, see if there's anything detectable on the AFM between grains in terms of topology. If you could get your hands on some Damascus steel that'd been etched I think a thumbnail with ATOMIC FORCE DAMASCUS STEEL!?(!) would get you a few million views. Oh and a violin bowstring before and after being treated with rosen! Might be tough as it's not flat but I think relating the structure to acoustic properties could be cool, and for an easier one the strip you run a match head along to light it. Looking forward to this series!
Sweet lord "ATOMIC FORCE DAMASCUS STEEL!?(!)" is just too perfect a combination of clickbait and actually cool data to resist. I'll see what I can do! Adding the rest to the todo list! Galvanized might show interesting things in the phase charts too (which I haven't really mentioned yet). And I think a bowstring should be fine, the ICSPI folks have an image of a hair that was scanned... curvature mostly becomes flat in the 20um field of view. Awesome, thanks for the suggestions!
I’ll second the ATOMIC FORCE DAMASCUS STEEL headline. I bet you’d get at least a million views, probably grow the channel my an order of magnitude from that one video alone :-0 (And like you, I love the perfect combination of ultimate clickbait title and actual interesting content.) (Bonus idea: Find the person with the biggest channel amongst the Damascus-Steel-making RUclipsrs and do it as a joint project. You’d pick up a bunch of views from his/her followers, and there might well be some interesting structural variations to see, resulting from different methods, materials, heat treating, etc.) (Related to that, how about looking at grain structure between cheap knives and expensive ones? There are etches that delineate grain structure, and there might be some interesting stuff to see there. - In fact, continuing the YT-collaboration idea, I bet there are people out there who are really into metallurgy who’d love to see grain structure at this level. One example on a very basic level: Forging greatly changes grain structure, you should easily be able to see differences between unforged bar stock and a forged knife blade. OTOH, though, optical microscopy works just fine for metallurgy, with the appropriate stains and etches, so maybe less compelling. Still, AFM would be a whole different look, and I think would draw a lot of interest from the knife-aficionado community.)
Damascus steel is a great idea! Comparison between etched and untreated would be nice to see. Do the click baity title, your channel deserves a million subs.
A solid lubricant that many more people might be familiar with is molybdenum disulfide. It might not make as stunning an AFM micrograph, but it could be interesting for comparison.
No idea how hard that would be, but scanning the edge of a blade would be cool: how wide is a freshly sharpened edge? And what does it actually look like when a blade feels "dull"?
AFM subject idea: living microbes: ruclips.net/video/NsQeUgfxbZQ/видео.html I guess not so interesting in appearance since it's just sitting there, but perhaps you can see them splitting over time?
Thanks Ben! A long, continuous scan would be very interesting I think, could stitch it into a movie to see if they move, divide, generate vesicles, etc. A major hiccup is that the MEMS device is sensitive to liquid, I think the surface tension ruins the XYZ flexures or prevents the thermal actuators from working correctly. Or I guess just shorts out the contacts heh. In any case, I would need to find a mostly-dry way to scan them while also keeping them alive. Maybe a hydrogel would work? Yeast or bacteria seeded on agar, the can pull liquid from through the gel but the surface remains dry enough to scan? Open to suggestions if you have any! Will do some research, I agree it would be really interesting!
Should be doable! I have a bin of D2 and A2 tool steel which should, theoretically, all be pre-heat treat. Will need to do some reading to see how finely ground/polished the samples have to be... I know they need to be super polished for grain etching to show up, but not sure if that applies to AFM. Would be a fun comparison, thanks for the suggestion!
Tungsten Disulphide is an amazing lubricant and will apparently stick to everything, but maybe not highly polished surfaces. It definitely sticks to white sofas. I would be interested to see the resulting topology of the polyamide (Kapton tape) to "graphene" experiment from a few weeks ago, as you're taking requests.
Sticks to white sofas haha, sounds like first hand experience. :) What really surprised me about the bare/polished glass is that at a macro level there was _very_ obviously a smeary WS2 film. But I guess when you get down the micro level it just wasn't very dense. Pretty cool! That graphene/kapton stuff is _definitely_ on the list. One of the compelling reasons I started looking into AFM originally :) Cheers!
Molybdenum disulfide is another material with same crystal structure as tungsten disulfide. It should be quite easy to obtain (also dry lubricant). Also, if you haven't already, check out van der Waals heterostructures. It's basically different 2D materials on top of each other with new or hybrid properties for the whole laminate without covalent or ionic bonding between the layers. Probably not an easy thing to replicate in home lab, but interesting read nonetheless.
Just picked up some MoS2! And some hexagonal boron nitride too! Will look into that van der waals heterostructure, not sure I've read about that. Sounds fascinating! And I like a good challenge... maybe there is a way to do a poor-man's deposition to get those layers without all the fancy gear. Cheers!
I've read that the best way to deposit WS2 onto a substrate is with a media blaster and compressed air. This should leave a very thin layer. Start with a new, clean cabinet to avoid any risk of contamination. When the workpiece turns blue, it's covered.
I have good idea for scan! You can scan anodized aluminum surface, but not just any anodized aluminum surface! Try and scan the surface of the aluminum _AFTER_ the pores are opened up with the acid/anodizing process but _BEFORE_ they are filled with color/dye and sealed up again 😁👍
Scan the anti reflection surface of a silicon solar cell, makes beautiful pictures. Also single laser ablation dots from a pulsed later that is scanning too fast look really cool.
Super excellent videos, and now this is a series, hope it lasts a lot Ideas of things to scan: * Some plastic that looks very flat, new, and maybe another one that has been exposed to sun * screen or lenses with antiglare treatment * let tap water dry on a microscope slide, scan the spot left * a teflon pan * aluminum foil, the side that is not shiny * MDF, the woody material * ceramic tile, the not glassed side * very thin paper, like the type used to print bible (ultra super thin) * regular scotch tape, not sticky side * waxed paper or a drop of cooled wax on a slide * rubber material, like the windshield wiper type, or like the buttons in many instruments
I love me some micrographs. Especially for high carbide tool steels. I’d like to see images of regular monodiamons and polydiamonds. Even images of different surface finishes; PVD coated with carbon, sandblasted, etc..
Great video. A really interesting AFM analysis for the machining community would be to take a ground surface and take a snapshot of a particular area, then score it lightly, take a picture, and then use a precision ground flat stone and go over the area and take a picture. The argument for precision ground flat stones is that they are so flat that even though they are made of a sintered abrasive, they will not remove any material from a surface except for protrusions like burrs. The theory goes like this: the surface is so flat, that the perpendicular force pushing the flat stone into the work is distributed to so many abrasive points that the individual force on a point is not enough to allow it to cut into the material. I would love to see this hypothesis tested. I realize that scanning the same miniscule area three times would be very difficult.
Oh, I like this idea! Do you happen to know where I could buy a precision ground flat stone? My stone is... very much not precision :) And I don't have a surface grinder (yet...some day...). I could easily sacrifice a Shars gage block or some other commercially ground piece to do the test, and can make the scratch with a diamond scribe or carbide insert or something. Do you think the test would be representative if the work is smaller than the stone? E.g. gage block on top of stone, instead of the stone on top of something large like a mill table? Finding the same area could be tricky but I think doable with enough patience. The adjustment micrometers allow very fine movement, so just a lot of trial/error to get back to the same spot.
@@BreakingTaps Here are three possibilities:www.26acremaker.com/ or www.kineticprecision.com/purchase or www.ebay.com/itm/303582682327. I have a surface grinder and a diamond wheel, but have never tried to grind abrasive stones before. I got my stones from Lance Baltzley (First on the list) as a generous gift for my channel. I don't think that it would matter who is on top if the pressure was even, but I am not an expert by any means. If you could pull this off, it would be interesting to a whole bunch of machinists out there, in particular Tom Lipton (Oxtools) and Robin Renzetti (Robrenz). Let me know if you need me to attempt to make a set for you: dudley.toolwright@gmail.com.
Wow, the scale there is crazy! AFM scans of diffraction gratings would be interesting, I think I'm more interested in how cheap ones scan than ruled ones. Everyday objects like paper (if it's not too rough), ice cubes (if that temperature range is usable), or optical elements (like a cheap multi-coated lens) would be interesting to me.
I'm curious what the diffraction gratings from the multi-axis "fireworks glasses" would look like under this. Or any of the other laser pointer "shape" gratings. (Also, maybe I watch too many cute baby animal videos on Instagram, but at 7:26 I actually went "OOOH!!! IT'S WAGGIN ITS LITTLE TAIL!!" out loud while eating breakfast.)
I can do that! I think I have a few types of graphite around the shop (some compressed stuff, pyrolytic, nano-powder) would be interesting to see what they all look like. And maybe see if that famous scotch-tape graphene trick actually works :)
Try to leave notes and other text up on the screen longer. If something’s important enough for you to put it up, it’s important enough for us to read and have time to absorb it. Perhaps it’s only me, but it often takes much longer to read & absorb than it does to compose and put on screen. Your content and presentation are superb and I wish I had your level of knowledge, but I’m hanging in & learning a lot. I really appreciate what you’re providing. Thanks and keep it coming!
Mad! Could watch it scanning up close all day. How close do you think you could get? I think a split screen with the scanning needle taking up most of the frame (so the wobble uses up 25% of the horizontal view) on the left and the resulting scan on the right could be fascinating to watch. You also mentioned all the different modes an AFM can use, tapping, rubbing, etc, which mode is this one using? For me the ultimate video would be: 1) Zoomed in enough that the wobble takes up a lot of the frame, side by side with the resultant digital topology being generated. 2) Slow motion so you can see any complex motion and how it interacts with the surface (because it is simple movement, you can use frame interpolation algorithms like DAIN to achieve 4x to even 16x slowdown, so if you filmed at 60fps, then you could get 1000fps, which slowed down to 25fps would be 40x slowdown). Your fibre lights would be able to provide sufficient illumination, and a very quick shutter speed (1/5000th of a second) would allow great interpolation. Happy to help out. 3) Scan a peacock feather. This is nature's most complicated repeating patterns, it is 3D structural colour. With an AFM you can only get the top layer (rather than 'in the canyon convolutions), but it'd still be very cool, and with the right cuts with a scalpel, you could do some side profiles also, lots to explore. Also in japan, there are 'special properties' to the wasabi grater (shark skin or substitute) that everyone swears uniquely unlocks the flavour, noone has done an AFM of one yet, and it would be fascinating to see how it 'beats' 8000 grit.
This is a tapping-mode AFM. So if you could zoom in enough, you'd see it tapping it's little probe across the surface :) I think the amplitude of oscillations is super small though, like on the order of microns (just guessing, not sure) so probably not capable of seeing it. So that was max magnification on the microscope. I'd have to see if I can get a bigger barlow lens for it, or start digitally zooming. It's 4k footage off that camera, so in theory we could zoom in 2x before really starting to notice the pixels, 4-5x if we don't mind it being super pixelated :) My other microscope (a traditional, non-stereo variety) has larger magnification but I'm not sure I could get the probe positioned under the objective correctly, much trickier setup there. I like the idea of scanning at high speed! Will see what I can do in that department. I agree that if we can punch in a bit more to see it interacting with the surface some, slowing it down would be super cool.
@@BreakingTaps Love it, if you want help just comment here, I do digital enhancement for my day job, so making the best of low resolution low framerate is something I can definitely assist with. Don't forget for high speed motion, you can slow it down another way, through deliberate temporal aliasing - so lets say a machine repeats a tap cycle at 1000 Hz, but you can only film at 25Hz, well if you set a strobe (or the camera) to flash at exactly 25.0025Hz, then the machine will have completed 40 cycles PLUS 10% of a cycle, so in that case you'll have a video of 10 frames per cycle (as though you were filming at 10,000Hz). Btw I'm sure with such high quality content your channel will blow up and at some point you won't be able to interact with all the comments, but I (and others I'm sure) really appreciate how much you engage with feedback and try things (while it lasts haha).
Theoretically, yes! In practice it might be really hard... the cantilever is designed to be very soft/compliant so it might actually move under the force of the other cantilever tapping on it. But a bunch of people have asked so I'll see if I can give it a shot :)
I think aluminum anodizing could look cool. Maybe like a honeycomb. Also seeing the difference between Type II and type III (hard) anodizing would be very interesting as well. Thanks for the great content. Love this stuff!
Yes, hexagonal boron nitride. Available from 3M, at least in Europe, as a resin additive to reduce friction and improve thermal conductivity. Also saw it on AliExpress, including "cosmetic grade" as it's apparently used in make-up. I find it interesting how hexagonal boron nitride is like graphite (but non-conductive), and cubic boron nitride is almost like diamond (for lathe tools, CBN).
First video I've seen on this channel, cool stuff. Have you done anything with stuff that has "structural color" like peacock feathers? Or perhaps anything with a holographic surface, like you see on a lot of credit cards or whatever. Anything that has some kind of thin-film iridescence would be really interesting. Maybe opal or anodized titanium.
Thanks! Not yet, but it's on the shortlist of things to scan! I just got an opal in the mail this morning, and am looking around for some feathers or butterfly wings. Good idea about holograms, hadn't thought of that!
It's a "3.5X-180X Simul-Focal Stereo Zoom Microscope with 30W LED Illuminator" from Amscope. I'm pretty happy with it so far! I haven't used any other extending-arm varieties like this before, just stationary inspection/disection stereo scopes, so I don't have a lot to compare against. But it is sturdy, good range of motion up/down and forward/back, good range of magnification depending on the eyepieces and barlow lens, and the camera port is parfocal with the eyepiece which I wanted for filming purposes. The non-parfocal ones are a lot cheaper iirc, so if filming isn't required that'd be the way to go. I also ignored all the options with a webcam because I'm just taping my camera on top :) Wasn't a cheap purchase, and definitely not a Leica or Zeiss, but it's served me well so far. :)
Speaking of scanning moth wings, it might be cool to scan some iridescent insects, or something like blue morpho wing, although I'm not sure how interesting the texture would look in the 20 micron range.
Please put a first surface mirror under the probe so that you "maybe" able to get a shot from below looking up at the probe. $100 portable projectors sometimes use flat "first surface mirrors".
id love to see molybdenum markings on stainless steel (co2 laser bakes it on and does some chemical reaction, i know logically it must be raised, but it always feels/looks recessed.
Hey boss, try buffing the TS2 into something less polar like wax or plastic. Thinking polarity is the thing messing with your surface adhesion problem. IDK if you scanning method is compatible with such stuff, but that seems to be the thing getting in your way IMO.
scan a blood film? spread correctly that's a neat monolayer of cells. maybe you can load WS2 on frosted glass rather than scrached glass? I have no idea if these things are the right scale for the AFM.
Can you scan a piece of a chipped tooth, both the normal "outside" surface of the tooth as well as the surface that was exposed by it getting broken? (maybe check with a dentist, or perhaps like a medical university or something, if it's not easy to figure out where to get one)
Supposedly this stuff is the best dry lubricant there is, better than MoS2 and h-BN which have been known for some time and are already in use. People say it works wonders an a lubricant additive to oil and grease. You can buy this stuff from China on Aliexpress for cheap. ~15$ for 100g with 0.6 micron avg particle size and 0.1 micron is 21$. It will pass trough oil filters effortless at that size. 1-5 grams per Liter of oil does the trick and according for forums and people who tried it out 1-2g is enough. Meaning 100g could treat 50-100L of oil and significantly improve wear protection and smooth operation of engines, transmissions etc... Adding a solid lubricant additive like MoS2, h-BN or WS2 to engine oils has always proved to be beneficial especially to older engines which realy on high ZDDP oils like ~1500-2000ppm while modern oils are way lower around 600-1300ppm. Many reason for that (dpf, cat, deposits in combustion chamber, LSPI). It aids the already existent additive package of the engine oil which would be mainly ZDDP and these days more and more Moly and Boron in an organic dissolved form. There are SOME oils mainly Ravenol Oils from Germany including dissolved Tungsten (its been identified to beVanderbilt Vanlube W324 in Ravenol oil) and I know of some additives like Archoil which use that aswell but Tungsten as an anti-wear additive seems to be a fairly new development on the oil market. I'm going to buy some powdered WS2 and use it from now on for everything. Cheap-ish and supposedly better than h-BN and MoS2 which Ive used before with success.
Can you get a scan of a diffraction grating? You must have some of that around your shop. Alternatively, maybe you can split the layers of a dvd or blu-ray apart and look at the pits/grooves in the foil layer.
Cool! 😁 I look forward to it. I guess it's about time I subscribe so as not to miss that. I'm trying to think of anything else that ought to have a highly regular/structured surface.. butterfly/moth wings maybe? Diamond, sapphire or BN? The surface is the limit!
Thanks, really interesting to see, through the microscope, just how small that oscillating sensor is. But to be able to image materials on the nanographic scale -- well, that's just Amazing! For a future Micrograph Monday, could you look at pearl? Or powdered pearl, rather. And would it be the same as nacre, mother-of-pearl, the polished insides (or outsides) of some sea shells? I imagine it would have a layered construction of some sort, comparable to a butterfly's wing, to enable it to produce the colours by interference, but I'd be interested to know for sure how it works.... Thanks for all the effort you put into your videos (you can't be lazy, by definition -- you're a RUclips creator!). Best wishes! Katherine from Kent 👍👍👍
I don't know if I can explain my idea well enough but here goes. What if the little probe bit that touches the surface was the size of a human and what size would that make the earth in relative scale? So the idea would be to scan a ball relative to earth size if the probe was a human to show how flat it can seem up close.
It is very similar indeed! Both have essentially the same molecular structure, form monolayers/platelets, are excellent high-temp dry lubricants, and are both semiconductors. I think MoS2 has received even more research than WS2 for semiconductor and photosensor purposes. Only reason I did WS2 is because my order of MoS2 got stuck in the mail and just now showed up :) But I want to see what it looks like in the future as well!
Dvds blurays and cds are fun. I did that years ago. I just love to see the difference in size. Insects are fun aswell. Fly eyes f.e. but insects are hard to get nice images. Blue natural materials often have a nanostructure like butterflywings. How much is this afm? And how much are the cantilevers? For the afm i used the cantilevers were avpain to change. 20€ a piece and a sometimes you killed one because it was so tiny and you so clumsy🙄
Added to the todo list, those sound fun! ICSPI requested I redirect folks to them for quotes, but I can say it's in the ballpark of what I paid for my complete CNC system. So expensive, but not ludicrously so. Probes are $100-200 depending on type, but last many hundreds of scans compared to normal tips (from what I undesrtand, the cantilever is very soft/compliant relative to others, so the actual tapping force is super low. And the tips are coated in Al2O3 or DLC for wear resistance). Definitely don't want to drop them though :) The mounting system and auto-approach has so far prevented me from learning any expensive mistakes :) 🤞
could or would a hydrophobic coating survive the scanning process? always wondered exactly what they form on a surface in a real-world application environment.
Top-notch video dude! I'm sure you will blow up as soon as the algorithm picks you up. Try to scan a butterfly wing, or really any insect wing! they have some sick microstructures
Hi, please try to observe a z80 or a 6502 IC clones from aliexpress, they are pretty cheap and really fun to observe. You can even extract the die easily just with a heat gun and a pair of pliers if you don't want to use chemicals or a blowing torch.
Cheers for the suggestion! Will see about grabbing some... I was wanting to find a more modern IC to look at but wasn't really sure what to go after. Will try these! Heat gun + pliers sounds ideal, not really setup for the acid decapping (usually nitric acid or something right?)
@@BreakingTaps Cool! Yeah nitric acid is mainly used in industry but I see many hobbyists using sulfuring acid. But yes, you need the right equipment, unfortunately I don't and a lot of people probably don't. More information about the heatgun method: ruclips.net/video/ZQeHHYJYWXo/видео.html I tried it myself for many chips and it works pretty well on old big packaging. Btw I took this z80 picture using a z80 from aliexpress and the heatgun method, hope that will motivate you to give it a try! pbs.twimg.com/media/Emj4L8TXUAAgZH4?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 Excellent work and nice channel, cheers!
This stuff is really cool. I wonder, what does this do that electron microscopy doesn't? I imagine that lower cost is a big factor, although they still seem really pricy.
Good question! I think most labs view them as complimentary techniques. They definitely can be cheaper (but not always!), and you don't need a vacuum or to coat biological materials with metal which can be a big advantage in some types of research. They give really high resolution Z height/topographic information, which SEMs are just so-so at. The tapping also collects phase information, which can help tell you something about the material properties, and different AFMs can do things like record local magnetic or electrical fields, work in liquids, etc. SEMs otoh have a huge field of view, huge _depth_ of field, easy to zoom/pan around the sample, can collect elemental information via EDS, etc. So in a lot of places SEM is used to characterize the general sample and get a feel for what it looks like, and AFM can be used to really zoom in on one region and collect nanometer level data about the topography.
I agree with Breaking Taps. AFM isna very versatile technique. While topographical analysis is a big part of AFM, the technique also has way more applications. We in the labs almost always use the device for analysing biological samples such as cells in media (this allows to keep the cells in their live state and analyse changes over time without destroying the sample). Also you can analyse mechanical, microrheological properties of nanomaterials, or by using kelvin probe microscopy you can analyse the surface potential of nanomaterials. And this is really the tip of the iceberg ( if you are interested in cool applications of AFM you should look up Fluid FM or SECM afm (doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2019.135472))
Hey friend, i'm really amazed by the AFM videos you're making. I'm really considering buying one for myself if the tecnology has become as afordable as it seems. May I ask you, have you considered trying samples of biological origin? I supose that there is some dry materials like wood, polen, leaves, spores, even dried or prepared bacteria in someway that could be very interesting with the technique
Thanks! Definitely looking into biological materials, just picked up a bag of diatomaceous earth today to see if I can get some scans of diatoms. Might be able to scrape up some tree pollen as well, although mostly missed the first burst of pollen around here. But yeah, as long as it's relatively dry it should be scannable!
I'm curious what a pencil mark would look like. I'm wondering if you could see the graphite flakes. I guess you did sorta cover this in the previous video with the tungsten disulfide platelets. If you look at laser engraved glass can you see the fractures? Good call back to ruclips.net/video/leh8RjVg0Js/видео.html
Great video again! Looking forward to Mondays! I find it ironic that some people expect to see a 20um wide scan using an optical camera or optical microscope. Also, consider some of the other typical AFM substrates like Si/silicon pre-diced chips or mica. PS: You can electro-exfoliate graphene on to a substrate to get flat platelets. If you want ref, then let me know. Expect the same for WS2.
:) Thanks! Just ordered some mica actually! I have some nanoparticles I want to look at and read that mica is the substrate of choice. Definitely interested in that electro-exfoliation reference! Would love to try it! My sort of meta-goal from looking at it under the AFM was to learn what it's like to work with, i'd like to try some field effect experiments with it some time
I know that if I have to ask, I probably can't afford it. I looked at their web site. They do list prices for replacement probes, but they don't publish even a ball park price range for their microscope. Could you find out what kind of money they want. I don't feel comfortable bothering them with a quote request, even if they would respond to just a hobbiest. A few more questions: Can images produced with their software be stitched together? Can you scan something with more depth, like diatom shells? Thanks.
In theory you could totally stitch them together, yeah. You'd have to do it externally (the software doesn't support that feature atm) but it wouldn't be too hard to do, the micrometer adjustments on the stage are surprisingly sensitive. Not hard to move it over a micron at a time, so moving it ~15um to overlap slightly wouldn't be bad. I'll try to do that in an upcoming video, sounds fun :) Scannign something with more curvature/profile should be fine as long as the actual features being scanned aren't +/- 10um from the start location. E.g. you could scan a sphere, as long as the 20um section you're scanning only has a curvature of +/-10um, if that makes sense. If the probe gets too close it can bottom out/"crash", and if it gets too far away it just starts scanning air. That said, most things tend to get pretty flat at that scale, e.g. i tried to scan a fly wing and while it didnt end up working for different reasons, the curvature of the wing itself wasn't a problem. (For those curious, fly wings apparently have a bunch of little bristles which made it hard to get a clean scan :) ) Re: pricing, they requested I redirect folks to them for a quote, sorry :( But I can say that it was in the ballpark of what I paid for my complete CNC setup, so it's definitely expensive for a hobbyist but not ludicrously expensive, if that helps. And they said they have no problems selling to hobbyists, etc which is cool... some companies i've tried to get quotes from just ignore individuals :(
An update! So Gwyddion does have the ability to stitch together images (they call it "multiple data merging", gwyddion.net/documentation/user-guide-en/multidata.html), so I think I'll try this sooner than later!
"Not much to see" is definitely true for people familiar with the technology. But that zoomout shot was epic! Even going out of focus it gave an awesome sense of scale for what's going on. Nice work!
Yea it looks so tiny while it is flapping back and forth but then when he zooms out you realize JUST HOW SMALL that is. I do some nanoparticle research, and sometimes I forget that when I can actually see what looks like a tiny speck of dust that speck is actually a cluster of thousands of particles once I get it under the scope.
I think it would be cool to see some sharpie marks scanned
I literally laughed out loud when you did the zoom out shot from the microscope. When you start seeing features that you recognize, it really gives scale to just how small that probe is! I have a conceptual understanding of how small something like a transistor is, but seeing something that small that has been manufactured so precisely is amazing!
This is mind-boggling fascinating
Things to scan. HDD surface... Cassette tape surface. Highres LCD surface
HDD platters store data magnetically, the HDD needle/read+write head hovers approximately 10nm above the surface (it basically 'floats' on the static layer of air [or helium in newer high capacity drives] that is stuck to the rotating platter surface [also called a boundary layer])
I'm sad to say there is, as as far as I know, nothing physical about the data storage process utilized by [modern?] HDDs (except the rotation of the platters and the motion of the r+w heads, but I was mainly referring to data storage and reproduction, which are both completely non-corporial processes [meaning nothing physically actually touches])
I think a scan of the HDD platter surface would probably look identical to the scan of the glass slide from yesterday's AFM episode. That is almost entirely flat and homogeneous.
Wow, that recording of the probe is amazing. It scans across so fast.
I mean, you can see that from how fast it generates each line of the image but it didn't really sink in how fast it was moving till that shot
To start with I thought "wait, ngauge make a nscope" ...but foolin us! That microscope shot of the scanning probe is awesome! Puts things in way better context than I got from the first video...
Awesome, glad it helped! Definitely a "doh!" moment for me after seeing the comments. Obvious in retrospect but totally didn't ocurr to me at the time
getting to love your channel more and more. Thanks for sharing! I'm a biologist and would love to see some different spider silks scanned like tarantula vs trapdoor silk as they use their silk for the same purpose but are separated by millions of years of evolution. I'd be happy to provide some prepared slides from my lab.
Oh that's awesome! Yeah I'd love to try and image that if you don't mind sharing some! Do you know what the average size of the filaments are? Shoot me an email: info@breakingtaps.com ❤
Amazing video as always. Id love to see scientific mirrors scanned, presicion lapped surfaces, things that we see as totally flat!
a scan of a telescope mirror would be cool also
Adding to the list! I have an optical flat around here somewhere, although it's probably pretty scratched up from shop use :) And I have a number of high quality uncoated quartz mirrors, λ/4 to λ/20 iirc? which I'll take a look at! Pretty sure I have a (small) coated parabolic mirror in the optics box too... will see!
@@BreakingTaps woo! Cant wait to see!
I don't think I'm ready to reconcile the concepts of surface roughness and flatness quite yet. Not ready to have my world turned upside down :(
But whatever, if I have a warped mental model of how the world works, better to fix it now vs later!
MY MAN! micrograph monolayer mondays makes me most mad, Mr. macro-micro measurer!
Alliteration FTW!
Most magnificent message, mister!
Awesome work as always! Few ideas off the top of my head: galvanized steel with a clear macro grain structure, see if there's anything detectable on the AFM between grains in terms of topology. If you could get your hands on some Damascus steel that'd been etched I think a thumbnail with ATOMIC FORCE DAMASCUS STEEL!?(!) would get you a few million views. Oh and a violin bowstring before and after being treated with rosen! Might be tough as it's not flat but I think relating the structure to acoustic properties could be cool, and for an easier one the strip you run a match head along to light it. Looking forward to this series!
Sweet lord "ATOMIC FORCE DAMASCUS STEEL!?(!)" is just too perfect a combination of clickbait and actually cool data to resist. I'll see what I can do! Adding the rest to the todo list! Galvanized might show interesting things in the phase charts too (which I haven't really mentioned yet). And I think a bowstring should be fine, the ICSPI folks have an image of a hair that was scanned... curvature mostly becomes flat in the 20um field of view. Awesome, thanks for the suggestions!
I’ll second the ATOMIC FORCE DAMASCUS STEEL headline. I bet you’d get at least a million views, probably grow the channel my an order of magnitude from that one video alone :-0 (And like you, I love the perfect combination of ultimate clickbait title and actual interesting content.)
(Bonus idea: Find the person with the biggest channel amongst the Damascus-Steel-making RUclipsrs and do it as a joint project. You’d pick up a bunch of views from his/her followers, and there might well be some interesting structural variations to see, resulting from different methods, materials, heat treating, etc.)
(Related to that, how about looking at grain structure between cheap knives and expensive ones? There are etches that delineate grain structure, and there might be some interesting stuff to see there. - In fact, continuing the YT-collaboration idea, I bet there are people out there who are really into metallurgy who’d love to see grain structure at this level. One example on a very basic level: Forging greatly changes grain structure, you should easily be able to see differences between unforged bar stock and a forged knife blade. OTOH, though, optical microscopy works just fine for metallurgy, with the appropriate stains and etches, so maybe less compelling. Still, AFM would be a whole different look, and I think would draw a lot of interest from the knife-aficionado community.)
Damascus steel is a great idea! Comparison between etched and untreated would be nice to see. Do the click baity title, your channel deserves a million subs.
Man, when you say "micro" you *really* mean it! Impressive!
Mind blowing how organic the probes movement looks.
It’s like there’s thousands of them in a butterfly wing moving with leverage.
Scanning shot looked awesome. I hope the tungsten disuphide isn't too toxic to breathe / smell.
Thanks! And haha, I hope so too! 😬
A solid lubricant that many more people might be familiar with is molybdenum disulfide. It might not make as stunning an AFM micrograph, but it could be interesting for comparison.
I love Micrograph Monday :D
Hexagon is Bestagon!
I was hoping someone would catch it :)
No idea how hard that would be, but scanning the edge of a blade would be cool: how wide is a freshly sharpened edge? And what does it actually look like when a blade feels "dull"?
I allready love this segment, really cool👌
AFM subject idea: living microbes: ruclips.net/video/NsQeUgfxbZQ/видео.html I guess not so interesting in appearance since it's just sitting there, but perhaps you can see them splitting over time?
Love that you watch this channel too
Thanks Ben! A long, continuous scan would be very interesting I think, could stitch it into a movie to see if they move, divide, generate vesicles, etc. A major hiccup is that the MEMS device is sensitive to liquid, I think the surface tension ruins the XYZ flexures or prevents the thermal actuators from working correctly. Or I guess just shorts out the contacts heh. In any case, I would need to find a mostly-dry way to scan them while also keeping them alive. Maybe a hydrogel would work? Yeast or bacteria seeded on agar, the can pull liquid from through the gel but the surface remains dry enough to scan? Open to suggestions if you have any! Will do some research, I agree it would be really interesting!
Any chance you could get metallography samples? Like, the same high carbon steel, annealed vs heat treated, it would be cool to see grain boundaries
Should be doable! I have a bin of D2 and A2 tool steel which should, theoretically, all be pre-heat treat. Will need to do some reading to see how finely ground/polished the samples have to be... I know they need to be super polished for grain etching to show up, but not sure if that applies to AFM. Would be a fun comparison, thanks for the suggestion!
Tungsten Disulphide is an amazing lubricant and will apparently stick to everything, but maybe not highly polished surfaces. It definitely sticks to white sofas.
I would be interested to see the resulting topology of the polyamide (Kapton tape) to "graphene" experiment from a few weeks ago, as you're taking requests.
Sticks to white sofas haha, sounds like first hand experience. :) What really surprised me about the bare/polished glass is that at a macro level there was _very_ obviously a smeary WS2 film. But I guess when you get down the micro level it just wasn't very dense. Pretty cool!
That graphene/kapton stuff is _definitely_ on the list. One of the compelling reasons I started looking into AFM originally :) Cheers!
some fun things to scan: Simple diffraction gratings. If you buy some polystyrene nano/mirco spheres you can try to get a self assembled monolayer.
Molybdenum disulfide is another material with same crystal structure as tungsten disulfide. It should be quite easy to obtain (also dry lubricant).
Also, if you haven't already, check out van der Waals heterostructures. It's basically different 2D materials on top of each other with new or hybrid properties for the whole laminate without covalent or ionic bonding between the layers. Probably not an easy thing to replicate in home lab, but interesting read nonetheless.
Just picked up some MoS2! And some hexagonal boron nitride too! Will look into that van der waals heterostructure, not sure I've read about that. Sounds fascinating! And I like a good challenge... maybe there is a way to do a poor-man's deposition to get those layers without all the fancy gear. Cheers!
I think a platinum anode could look interesting under the AFM, they usually have a microstructure to increase the surface area.
Honestly you could make tons of videos about "hey this is what this looks like under crazy magnification".I'd watch them all
I've read that the best way to deposit WS2 onto a substrate is with a media blaster and compressed air. This should leave a very thin layer. Start with a new, clean cabinet to avoid any risk of contamination. When the workpiece turns blue, it's covered.
Can't wait for more of this series!
I have good idea for scan! You can scan anodized aluminum surface, but not just any anodized aluminum surface! Try and scan the surface of the aluminum _AFTER_ the pores are opened up with the acid/anodizing process but _BEFORE_ they are filled with color/dye and sealed up again 😁👍
This AFM series is so cool. I had no idea it worked like it does. I'm blown away. So Cool!
it's a crime this channel has only 60k subs.
For all the right reasons I think a broken tap needs to be scanned.
Also shiny side vs dull side aluminium foil
Another idea, scan some aluminum at different steps of the anodizing process
Great videos. I'm glad I'm here before 1M subs
Scan the anti reflection surface of a silicon solar cell, makes beautiful pictures.
Also single laser ablation dots from a pulsed later that is scanning too fast look really cool.
Super excellent videos, and now this is a series, hope it lasts a lot
Ideas of things to scan:
* Some plastic that looks very flat, new, and maybe another one that has been exposed to sun
* screen or lenses with antiglare treatment
* let tap water dry on a microscope slide, scan the spot left
* a teflon pan
* aluminum foil, the side that is not shiny
* MDF, the woody material
* ceramic tile, the not glassed side
* very thin paper, like the type used to print bible (ultra super thin)
* regular scotch tape, not sticky side
* waxed paper or a drop of cooled wax on a slide
* rubber material, like the windshield wiper type, or like the buttons in many instruments
How have I not heard of this channel before? Fantastic stuff, dude! Subbed.
I love me some micrographs. Especially for high carbide tool steels. I’d like to see images of regular monodiamons and polydiamonds. Even images of different surface finishes; PVD coated with carbon, sandblasted, etc..
Great video. A really interesting AFM analysis for the machining community would be to take a ground surface and take a snapshot of a particular area, then score it lightly, take a picture, and then use a precision ground flat stone and go over the area and take a picture. The argument for precision ground flat stones is that they are so flat that even though they are made of a sintered abrasive, they will not remove any material from a surface except for protrusions like burrs. The theory goes like this: the surface is so flat, that the perpendicular force pushing the flat stone into the work is distributed to so many abrasive points that the individual force on a point is not enough to allow it to cut into the material. I would love to see this hypothesis tested. I realize that scanning the same miniscule area three times would be very difficult.
Oh, I like this idea! Do you happen to know where I could buy a precision ground flat stone? My stone is... very much not precision :) And I don't have a surface grinder (yet...some day...). I could easily sacrifice a Shars gage block or some other commercially ground piece to do the test, and can make the scratch with a diamond scribe or carbide insert or something. Do you think the test would be representative if the work is smaller than the stone? E.g. gage block on top of stone, instead of the stone on top of something large like a mill table?
Finding the same area could be tricky but I think doable with enough patience. The adjustment micrometers allow very fine movement, so just a lot of trial/error to get back to the same spot.
@@BreakingTaps Here are three possibilities:www.26acremaker.com/ or www.kineticprecision.com/purchase or www.ebay.com/itm/303582682327. I have a surface grinder and a diamond wheel, but have never tried to grind abrasive stones before. I got my stones from Lance Baltzley (First on the list) as a generous gift for my channel. I don't think that it would matter who is on top if the pressure was even, but I am not an expert by any means. If you could pull this off, it would be interesting to a whole bunch of machinists out there, in particular Tom Lipton (Oxtools) and Robin Renzetti (Robrenz). Let me know if you need me to attempt to make a set for you: dudley.toolwright@gmail.com.
That was so cool! I love your passion!
Wow, the scale there is crazy!
AFM scans of diffraction gratings would be interesting, I think I'm more interested in how cheap ones scan than ruled ones.
Everyday objects like paper (if it's not too rough), ice cubes (if that temperature range is usable), or optical elements (like a cheap multi-coated lens) would be interesting to me.
I'm curious what the diffraction gratings from the multi-axis "fireworks glasses" would look like under this. Or any of the other laser pointer "shape" gratings.
(Also, maybe I watch too many cute baby animal videos on Instagram, but at 7:26 I actually went "OOOH!!! IT'S WAGGIN ITS LITTLE TAIL!!" out loud while eating breakfast.)
Hey, man, I'm never not interested in an AFM micrograph. Bring it!
your channel is amazing !
We need a broken Tap (crossview) !
i guess u have some Broken Taps ... xD
Haha yes, I have many, many broken taps (because I am a terrible machinist) 😆 I'll put it on the todo list!
thing to scan - cutting inserts - edges and the yellow coating
Utterly awesome channel.
Please scan graphite! And graphene if you can exfoliate some :3
I can do that! I think I have a few types of graphite around the shop (some compressed stuff, pyrolytic, nano-powder) would be interesting to see what they all look like. And maybe see if that famous scotch-tape graphene trick actually works :)
brass and bronze bearings works good without lubrication and are used in everything :)
Nostalgic to see a B&W photo scanned, or maybe some holograms...
Try to leave notes and other text up on the screen longer. If something’s important enough for you to put it up, it’s important enough for us to read and have time to absorb it. Perhaps it’s only me, but it often takes much longer to read & absorb than it does to compose and put on screen. Your content and presentation are superb and I wish I had your level of knowledge, but I’m hanging in & learning a lot. I really appreciate what you’re providing. Thanks and keep it coming!
Mad! Could watch it scanning up close all day. How close do you think you could get? I think a split screen with the scanning needle taking up most of the frame (so the wobble uses up 25% of the horizontal view) on the left and the resulting scan on the right could be fascinating to watch. You also mentioned all the different modes an AFM can use, tapping, rubbing, etc, which mode is this one using?
For me the ultimate video would be:
1) Zoomed in enough that the wobble takes up a lot of the frame, side by side with the resultant digital topology being generated.
2) Slow motion so you can see any complex motion and how it interacts with the surface (because it is simple movement, you can use frame interpolation algorithms like DAIN to achieve 4x to even 16x slowdown, so if you filmed at 60fps, then you could get 1000fps, which slowed down to 25fps would be 40x slowdown). Your fibre lights would be able to provide sufficient illumination, and a very quick shutter speed (1/5000th of a second) would allow great interpolation. Happy to help out.
3) Scan a peacock feather. This is nature's most complicated repeating patterns, it is 3D structural colour. With an AFM you can only get the top layer (rather than 'in the canyon convolutions), but it'd still be very cool, and with the right cuts with a scalpel, you could do some side profiles also, lots to explore. Also in japan, there are 'special properties' to the wasabi grater (shark skin or substitute) that everyone swears uniquely unlocks the flavour, noone has done an AFM of one yet, and it would be fascinating to see how it 'beats' 8000 grit.
This is a tapping-mode AFM. So if you could zoom in enough, you'd see it tapping it's little probe across the surface :) I think the amplitude of oscillations is super small though, like on the order of microns (just guessing, not sure) so probably not capable of seeing it.
So that was max magnification on the microscope. I'd have to see if I can get a bigger barlow lens for it, or start digitally zooming. It's 4k footage off that camera, so in theory we could zoom in 2x before really starting to notice the pixels, 4-5x if we don't mind it being super pixelated :)
My other microscope (a traditional, non-stereo variety) has larger magnification but I'm not sure I could get the probe positioned under the objective correctly, much trickier setup there.
I like the idea of scanning at high speed! Will see what I can do in that department. I agree that if we can punch in a bit more to see it interacting with the surface some, slowing it down would be super cool.
@@BreakingTaps Love it, if you want help just comment here, I do digital enhancement for my day job, so making the best of low resolution low framerate is something I can definitely assist with.
Don't forget for high speed motion, you can slow it down another way, through deliberate temporal aliasing - so lets say a machine repeats a tap cycle at 1000 Hz, but you can only film at 25Hz, well if you set a strobe (or the camera) to flash at exactly 25.0025Hz, then the machine will have completed 40 cycles PLUS 10% of a cycle, so in that case you'll have a video of 10 frames per cycle (as though you were filming at 10,000Hz).
Btw I'm sure with such high quality content your channel will blow up and at some point you won't be able to interact with all the comments, but I (and others I'm sure) really appreciate how much you engage with feedback and try things (while it lasts haha).
Underrated channel
Can you scan an AFM probe with the AFM probe? (BTW love the idea of a AFM mondays series!)
Theoretically, yes! In practice it might be really hard... the cantilever is designed to be very soft/compliant so it might actually move under the force of the other cantilever tapping on it. But a bunch of people have asked so I'll see if I can give it a shot :)
I think aluminum anodizing could look cool. Maybe like a honeycomb. Also seeing the difference between Type II and type III (hard) anodizing would be very interesting as well. Thanks for the great content. Love this stuff!
I think a scan of a knife edge or the platter of a hard disc could be interesting
Molybdenum Disulfide, and HbN are some good options
Would love to see a CMOS sensor scanned
I think you will have fun looking at Aluminum Galium Nitride... 👀
Would be amazing to see Aerogel scanned ! 🤔
that macro shot was insane
how smooth is a piece of lego? or ice?
This is a really good idea.
what about dried soap bubbles?
Boron nitride, but not the cubic one,the one which is called white graphite, just look up for it.
Yes, hexagonal boron nitride. Available from 3M, at least in Europe, as a resin additive to reduce friction and improve thermal conductivity. Also saw it on AliExpress, including "cosmetic grade" as it's apparently used in make-up. I find it interesting how hexagonal boron nitride is like graphite (but non-conductive), and cubic boron nitride is almost like diamond (for lathe tools, CBN).
First video I've seen on this channel, cool stuff. Have you done anything with stuff that has "structural color" like peacock feathers? Or perhaps anything with a holographic surface, like you see on a lot of credit cards or whatever. Anything that has some kind of thin-film iridescence would be really interesting. Maybe opal or anodized titanium.
Thanks! Not yet, but it's on the shortlist of things to scan! I just got an opal in the mail this morning, and am looking around for some feathers or butterfly wings. Good idea about holograms, hadn't thought of that!
What is the microscope you are using? Would you buy that one again?
It's a "3.5X-180X Simul-Focal Stereo Zoom Microscope with 30W LED Illuminator" from Amscope. I'm pretty happy with it so far! I haven't used any other extending-arm varieties like this before, just stationary inspection/disection stereo scopes, so I don't have a lot to compare against. But it is sturdy, good range of motion up/down and forward/back, good range of magnification depending on the eyepieces and barlow lens, and the camera port is parfocal with the eyepiece which I wanted for filming purposes. The non-parfocal ones are a lot cheaper iirc, so if filming isn't required that'd be the way to go. I also ignored all the options with a webcam because I'm just taping my camera on top :)
Wasn't a cheap purchase, and definitely not a Leica or Zeiss, but it's served me well so far. :)
@@BreakingTaps Thanks for the detailed reply, I really appreciate it! I love your videos, keep up the great work :)
This is being used with much success in Silca bike chain wax
This is so cool!
Speaking of scanning moth wings, it might be cool to scan some iridescent insects, or something like blue morpho wing, although I'm not sure how interesting the texture would look in the 20 micron range.
Please put a first surface mirror under the probe so that you "maybe" able to get a shot from below looking up at the probe.
$100 portable projectors sometimes use flat "first surface mirrors".
id love to see molybdenum markings on stainless steel (co2 laser bakes it on and does some chemical reaction, i know logically it must be raised, but it always feels/looks recessed.
Hey boss, try buffing the TS2 into something less polar like wax or plastic. Thinking polarity is the thing messing with your surface adhesion problem. IDK if you scanning method is compatible with such stuff, but that seems to be the thing getting in your way IMO.
Ah, that's a good idea. Will give that a shot, thanks!
Nice, thanks
scan a blood film? spread correctly that's a neat monolayer of cells.
maybe you can load WS2 on frosted glass rather than scrached glass?
I have no idea if these things are the right scale for the AFM.
Can you scan a piece of a chipped tooth, both the normal "outside" surface of the tooth as well as the surface that was exposed by it getting broken? (maybe check with a dentist, or perhaps like a medical university or something, if it's not easy to figure out where to get one)
Supposedly this stuff is the best dry lubricant there is, better than MoS2 and h-BN which have been known for some time and are already in use. People say it works wonders an a lubricant additive to oil and grease.
You can buy this stuff from China on Aliexpress for cheap. ~15$ for 100g with 0.6 micron avg particle size and 0.1 micron is 21$. It will pass trough oil filters effortless at that size.
1-5 grams per Liter of oil does the trick and according for forums and people who tried it out 1-2g is enough. Meaning 100g could treat 50-100L of oil and significantly improve wear protection and smooth operation of engines, transmissions etc... Adding a solid lubricant additive like MoS2, h-BN or WS2 to engine oils has always proved to be beneficial especially to older engines which realy on high ZDDP oils like ~1500-2000ppm while modern oils are way lower around 600-1300ppm. Many reason for that (dpf, cat, deposits in combustion chamber, LSPI).
It aids the already existent additive package of the engine oil which would be mainly ZDDP and these days more and more Moly and Boron in an organic dissolved form. There are SOME oils mainly Ravenol Oils from Germany including dissolved Tungsten (its been identified to beVanderbilt Vanlube W324 in Ravenol oil) and I know of some additives like Archoil which use that aswell but Tungsten as an anti-wear additive seems to be a fairly new development on the oil market.
I'm going to buy some powdered WS2 and use it from now on for everything.
Cheap-ish and supposedly better than h-BN and MoS2 which Ive used before with success.
i see a finger print on your glass slide!
Hehe, i was actually tempted to scan that instead but resisted the urge. Could be fun in the future though! :)
molybdenum also ~ platelets
Can you get a scan of a diffraction grating? You must have some of that around your shop. Alternatively, maybe you can split the layers of a dvd or blu-ray apart and look at the pits/grooves in the foil layer.
Added to the list! Pretty sure I have some of that cheap plastic diffraction grating around here somewhere, will go digging :)
Cool! 😁 I look forward to it. I guess it's about time I subscribe so as not to miss that. I'm trying to think of anything else that ought to have a highly regular/structured surface.. butterfly/moth wings maybe? Diamond, sapphire or BN? The surface is the limit!
Thanks, really interesting to see, through the microscope, just how small that oscillating sensor is. But to be able to image materials on the nanographic scale -- well, that's just Amazing!
For a future Micrograph Monday, could you look at pearl? Or powdered pearl, rather. And would it be the same as nacre, mother-of-pearl, the polished insides (or outsides) of some sea shells? I imagine it would have a layered construction of some sort, comparable to a butterfly's wing, to enable it to produce the colours by interference, but I'd be interested to know for sure how it works....
Thanks for all the effort you put into your videos (you can't be lazy, by definition -- you're a RUclips creator!).
Best wishes! Katherine from Kent 👍👍👍
Die-Calc-eh-jen-ide is the pronunciation just FYI. Took me about 3 years to figure it out.
I don't know if I can explain my idea well enough but here goes. What if the little probe bit that touches the surface was the size of a human and what size would that make the earth in relative scale? So the idea would be to scan a ball relative to earth size if the probe was a human to show how flat it can seem up close.
Hah! That's a fun demonstration to think about. I'm slowly teaching myself Blender...will see if I can put together some kind of animation!
From what you say, Tungsten disulfide sounds a lot like molybdenum disulfide.
It is very similar indeed! Both have essentially the same molecular structure, form monolayers/platelets, are excellent high-temp dry lubricants, and are both semiconductors. I think MoS2 has received even more research than WS2 for semiconductor and photosensor purposes. Only reason I did WS2 is because my order of MoS2 got stuck in the mail and just now showed up :) But I want to see what it looks like in the future as well!
Dvds blurays and cds are fun. I did that years ago. I just love to see the difference in size. Insects are fun aswell. Fly eyes f.e. but insects are hard to get nice images. Blue natural materials often have a nanostructure like butterflywings.
How much is this afm? And how much are the cantilevers? For the afm i used the cantilevers were avpain to change. 20€ a piece and a sometimes you killed one because it was so tiny and you so clumsy🙄
Added to the todo list, those sound fun!
ICSPI requested I redirect folks to them for quotes, but I can say it's in the ballpark of what I paid for my complete CNC system. So expensive, but not ludicrously so. Probes are $100-200 depending on type, but last many hundreds of scans compared to normal tips (from what I undesrtand, the cantilever is very soft/compliant relative to others, so the actual tapping force is super low. And the tips are coated in Al2O3 or DLC for wear resistance). Definitely don't want to drop them though :) The mounting system and auto-approach has so far prevented me from learning any expensive mistakes :) 🤞
could or would a hydrophobic coating survive the scanning process? always wondered exactly what they form on a surface in a real-world application environment.
Subject idea: Silica gel or molecular sieves.
Can you scan very high grit sandpaper? Like sub micron? There’s also sub micron diamond lapping solution on eBay that might be fun.
Can it measure the perfectly cut granite obelisk in Egypt ...lol..would be amazing to see
Quasicrystals pleeeeeaase!
How about scanning fingernails, toenails, or hair?
Top-notch video dude! I'm sure you will blow up as soon as the algorithm picks you up.
Try to scan a butterfly wing, or really any insect wing! they have some sick microstructures
try scanning some DNA, it would be really cool
Hi, please try to observe a z80 or a 6502 IC clones from aliexpress, they are pretty cheap and really fun to observe.
You can even extract the die easily just with a heat gun and a pair of pliers if you don't want to use chemicals or a blowing torch.
Cheers for the suggestion! Will see about grabbing some... I was wanting to find a more modern IC to look at but wasn't really sure what to go after. Will try these! Heat gun + pliers sounds ideal, not really setup for the acid decapping (usually nitric acid or something right?)
@@BreakingTaps Cool! Yeah nitric acid is mainly used in industry but I see many hobbyists using sulfuring acid.
But yes, you need the right equipment, unfortunately I don't and a lot of people probably don't.
More information about the heatgun method: ruclips.net/video/ZQeHHYJYWXo/видео.html
I tried it myself for many chips and it works pretty well on old big packaging.
Btw I took this z80 picture using a z80 from aliexpress and the heatgun method, hope that will motivate you to give it a try! pbs.twimg.com/media/Emj4L8TXUAAgZH4?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
Excellent work and nice channel, cheers!
This stuff is really cool. I wonder, what does this do that electron microscopy doesn't? I imagine that lower cost is a big factor, although they still seem really pricy.
Good question! I think most labs view them as complimentary techniques. They definitely can be cheaper (but not always!), and you don't need a vacuum or to coat biological materials with metal which can be a big advantage in some types of research. They give really high resolution Z height/topographic information, which SEMs are just so-so at. The tapping also collects phase information, which can help tell you something about the material properties, and different AFMs can do things like record local magnetic or electrical fields, work in liquids, etc.
SEMs otoh have a huge field of view, huge _depth_ of field, easy to zoom/pan around the sample, can collect elemental information via EDS, etc. So in a lot of places SEM is used to characterize the general sample and get a feel for what it looks like, and AFM can be used to really zoom in on one region and collect nanometer level data about the topography.
I agree with Breaking Taps. AFM isna very versatile technique. While topographical analysis is a big part of AFM, the technique also has way more applications. We in the labs almost always use the device for analysing biological samples such as cells in media (this allows to keep the cells in their live state and analyse changes over time without destroying the sample). Also you can analyse mechanical, microrheological properties of nanomaterials, or by using kelvin probe microscopy you can analyse the surface potential of nanomaterials. And this is really the tip of the iceberg ( if you are interested in cool applications of AFM you should look up Fluid FM or SECM afm (doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2019.135472))
Hey friend, i'm really amazed by the AFM videos you're making. I'm really considering buying one for myself if the tecnology has become as afordable as it seems. May I ask you, have you considered trying samples of biological origin? I supose that there is some dry materials like wood, polen, leaves, spores, even dried or prepared bacteria in someway that could be very interesting with the technique
Thanks! Definitely looking into biological materials, just picked up a bag of diatomaceous earth today to see if I can get some scans of diatoms. Might be able to scrape up some tree pollen as well, although mostly missed the first burst of pollen around here. But yeah, as long as it's relatively dry it should be scannable!
Can you use this method to scan a butterfly wing?
Yes! On the todo list, I've been told the scans turn out amazing :)
@@BreakingTaps
Nice, can't wait to see that :)
I'm curious what a pencil mark would look like. I'm wondering if you could see the graphite flakes. I guess you did sorta cover this in the previous video with the tungsten disulfide platelets.
If you look at laser engraved glass can you see the fractures? Good call back to ruclips.net/video/leh8RjVg0Js/видео.html
Great video again! Looking forward to Mondays! I find it ironic that some people expect to see a 20um wide scan using an optical camera or optical microscope. Also, consider some
of the other typical AFM substrates like Si/silicon pre-diced chips or mica. PS: You can electro-exfoliate graphene on to a substrate to get flat platelets. If you want ref, then let me know. Expect the same for WS2.
:) Thanks!
Just ordered some mica actually! I have some nanoparticles I want to look at and read that mica is the substrate of choice. Definitely interested in that electro-exfoliation reference! Would love to try it! My sort of meta-goal from looking at it under the AFM was to learn what it's like to work with, i'd like to try some field effect experiments with it some time
@@BreakingTaps send me your email to jquinn 11733 at g m a i l DOT com. Thanks!
You are a great role model. Keep it up!!
I know that if I have to ask, I probably can't afford it. I looked at their web site. They do list prices for replacement probes, but they don't publish even a ball park price range for their microscope. Could you find out what kind of money they want. I don't feel comfortable bothering them with a quote request, even if they would respond to just a hobbiest. A few more questions: Can images produced with their software be stitched together? Can you scan something with more depth, like diatom shells? Thanks.
In theory you could totally stitch them together, yeah. You'd have to do it externally (the software doesn't support that feature atm) but it wouldn't be too hard to do, the micrometer adjustments on the stage are surprisingly sensitive. Not hard to move it over a micron at a time, so moving it ~15um to overlap slightly wouldn't be bad. I'll try to do that in an upcoming video, sounds fun :)
Scannign something with more curvature/profile should be fine as long as the actual features being scanned aren't +/- 10um from the start location. E.g. you could scan a sphere, as long as the 20um section you're scanning only has a curvature of +/-10um, if that makes sense. If the probe gets too close it can bottom out/"crash", and if it gets too far away it just starts scanning air. That said, most things tend to get pretty flat at that scale, e.g. i tried to scan a fly wing and while it didnt end up working for different reasons, the curvature of the wing itself wasn't a problem. (For those curious, fly wings apparently have a bunch of little bristles which made it hard to get a clean scan :) )
Re: pricing, they requested I redirect folks to them for a quote, sorry :( But I can say that it was in the ballpark of what I paid for my complete CNC setup, so it's definitely expensive for a hobbyist but not ludicrously expensive, if that helps. And they said they have no problems selling to hobbyists, etc which is cool... some companies i've tried to get quotes from just ignore individuals :(
An update! So Gwyddion does have the ability to stitch together images (they call it "multiple data merging", gwyddion.net/documentation/user-guide-en/multidata.html), so I think I'll try this sooner than later!
“Hexagon is the bestagon” -CGPGrey 2:46