NANOSENSORS™ offers two types of diamond coated AFM tips:

- Diamond Coated AFM tips (DT) are mainly used for applications where a high wear resistance of the AFM tip is necessary e.g., friction measurements, wear measurements, and the measurement of elastic properties on hard materials

- Conductive Diamond Coated AFM tips (CDT) are mainly used in applications where not only wear-resistance but also a certain conductivity of the AFM probe is required e.g.
Tunneling AFM , Conducting AFM, Scanning Capacitance Microscopy (SCM) and others

Both types of diamond coated AFM tip are produced by coating AFM probes of the PointProbe® Plus type with a real polycrystalline diamond coating on the tip-side of the AFM cantilever. The diamond coating has to be relatively thick in order to form a closed layer over the whole AFM probe. The typical macroscopic AFM tip radius of curvature of these AFM probes is between 100 and 200 nm. Nanoroughness in the 10 nm regime improves the resolution on flat surfaces.

The following AFM probe types are available:


CDT-CONTR – contact mode type AFM cantilever, electrically conductive highly doped diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever
Typical force constant: 0.5 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 20 kHz

DT-CONTR - contact mode type AFM cantilever, wear resistant diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever
Typical force constant: 0.5 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 20 kHz



CDT-NCHR – tapping mode/dynamic mode type AFM cantilever, electrically conductive highly doped diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever:
Typical force constant: 80 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 400 kHz

DT-NCHR - tapping mode/dynamic mode type AFM cantilever, wear resistant diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever
Typical force constant: 80 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 400 kHz



CDT-NCLR electrically conductive highly doped diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever:
Typical force constant: 72 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 210 kHz

DT-NCLR - wear resistant diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever:
Typical force constant: 72 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 210 kHz



CDT-FMR – force modulation type AFM cantilever, force constant between contact and non-contact mode values makes it possible to use this AFM cantilever for contact mode measurements with medium forces as well as for non-contact or tapping mode measurements, electrically conductive highly doped diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever:
Typical force constant: 6.2 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 105 kHz

DT-FMR - force modulation type AFM cantilever, force constant between contact and non-contact mode values makes it possible to use this AFM cantilever for contact mode measurements with medium forces as well as for non-contact or tapping mode measurements, wear resistant diamond coating on the AFM tip side, aluminum reflex coating on the backside of the AFM cantilever:
Typical force constant: 6.2 N/m
Typical resonance frequency: 105 kHz

Please contact us for further information or have a look at the brochure on Diamond Coated PointProbe® Plus AFM probes: www.nanosensors.com/Diamond_Coated_PointProbe_Plus.pdf

Application examples can be found in the NANOSENSORS blog: https://www.nanosensors.com/blog/tag/conductive-diamond-coated-afm-probes/