E-Book Overview
Highly experienced physicians and biologists clearly explain the basic technical knowledge needed to use AFM and demonstrate its multifarious uses in biomedicine and the life sciences. The applications range widely from morphostructural analyses of cellular structures, to the investigation of subcellular structures, to functional investigations, and reveal a powerful new way of looking at biological samples. The methods clearly demonstrate the advantages of AFM over traditional life science microscopy, among them simultaneous very high magnification and resolution, minimal tissue and cell preparation, and the ability to obtain different views of the sample from a single data collection.
E-Book Content
Methods in Molecular Biology
TM
VOLUME 242
Atomic Force Microscopy Biomedical Methods and Applications Edited by
Pier Carlo Braga Davide Ricci
How AFM Works
3
1 How the Atomic Force Microscope Works Davide Ricci and Pier Carlo Braga 1. Introduction Microscopes have always been one of the essential instruments for research in the biomedical field. Radiation-based microscopes (such as the light microscope and the electron microscope) have become trustworthy companions in the laboratory and have contributed greatly to our scientific knowledge. However, although digital techniques in recent years have still enhanced their performance, the limits of their inherent capabilities have been progressively reached. The advent of scanning probe microscopes and especially of the atomic force microscope (AFM; ref. 1) has opened new perspectives in the investigation of biomedical specimens and induces to look again with rejuvenated excitement at what we can learn by “looking” at our samples. Novices are at first mesmerized by two features: the name of the instrument and the colorful 3D computer visualization of surfaces. One late