Chemical-force microscopy for materials characterization

Chemical force microscopy (CFM) is an extension of atomic force microscopy (AFM) that employs a chemically-functionalized tip, which makes it possible to control chemical interactions between tip and sample, so CFM can be used to probe local chemical information on the surfaces of materials and biological samples under near-native environments at nanoscale spatial resolution. We describe applications of CFM for materials characterization, including measurements of single intermolecular interaction forces and investigations of nanoscale heterogeneity of surface-chemical properties of polymeric materials.