MANIPULATION OF NANOPARTICLES USING DYNAMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY - SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTS

Dynamic force microscopy (DFM) in combination with special-purpose pro be control software is used as a manipulation tool for the precise pos itioning of single gold nanoparticles on a mica substrate covered with a poly-L-lysine film. Experimental results are presented that show ho w to construct arbitrary patterns of nanoparticles. The dynamic state of the cantilever during the manipulation process is studied experimen tally by analyzing the simultaneously recorded non-contact amplitude a nd cantilever deflection. Numerical simulations guide and supplement t he experiments in order to provide a physical description of the manip ulation mechanism. The results presented here show that the nanopartic les are pushed along the surface once a critical contact force between tip and gold cluster is exceeded. In addition, a method for estimatin g the average separation between the tip apex and the sample in DFM is described.