Olympus BioLever mini User manual

Cantilever
Case label Cantilever chip
(substrate)
user’s manual 書
Thank you for purchasing OLYMPUS Micro cantilever.
Please read this manual carefully before use.
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Please obey the following to the OLYMPUS micro cantilevers
Warning
Use protective eye glasses when handling to avoid
damage to the eyes from breakage of the cantilever
chips.
Case (Tac carrier) Adhesive sheet Cantilever chips
Upside
Down side
Tape
Case (closed) Case (open)
Cantilevers are tip-side-up
as viewed in the case.
One cantilever is elongated from the
side of round shoulders of the chip.
Case Label
Manual and Spec sheet
Plastic pack (blue colored)
Plastic case
(Cantilevers are in the case)
Cantilever chips in a plastic case are included in the envelope with manual and spec sheet.
＜Explanation of the each part of the products＞
Cantilever chips are contained in the plastic case (Tac carrier)
BL-AC40TS-C2
110
0.09
Magnified illust.
user’s manual
Caution
Label
Lot Number
Inspection stamp
Envelope for transportation
Inside Please handle our cantilevers carefully because they are fragile.
Caution
Do not drop or shake the cantilever case. Even when the cantilever
chips are contained in the cantilever case, the cantilevers may break
if the case is handled roughly or jarred.
Caution
It is recommended that precautions be taken to prevent damage to the
cantilever tips from electrostatic discharge.
Caution
Products name
Be sure to store the cantilevers at room temperature and moderate
humidity.
Caution
When discarding, please obey the laws and regulations in your country
and/or your company. These cantilever are made of silicon, silicon
nitride, gold and chromium.
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Special feature of OLYMPUS Micro cantilever
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(BL-AC40TS-C2, BioLever mini)
1. 40 micron-long short cantilever
1 Preparation
1) Please prepare the followings before using OLYMPUS cantilevers.
2) To gain a better understanding of how cantilevers and chips are connected, cantilevers
should be inspected under the microscope.
1) Work environment
This cantilever probe is designed for AC mode AFM measurements in liquid. The
cantilever has been reduced to the minimum practical size for the optical beam deflection
sensors in most commercially available AFM. This small cantilever has a nominal spring
constant of 0.1 N/m, with a resonant frequency of approximately 25 kHz in water (or 110
kHz in air). The higher frequency in liquid allows faster imaging of soft biological samples,
and the short lever give a higher lever sensitivity with optical beam deflection sensors.
3. Pre-separated Chips
2) For hazard avoidance
3) For cantilever treatment
4) For inspection
2 Open the case
：Clean bench
(Use of an electrical charge neutralizer of ionizer is recommended.)
：Protective eye glasses
：Tweezers
(Use of anti-electrostatic discharge mat and a wrist band is
recommended.)
：Stereo microscope
The chips offered in tac carrier case, are separated in advance. The chips can be used in
AFM as soon as the case is opened.
4. Gold reflex coating
Gold/Chromium showing high reflection is employed as the reflex-coat material. Good
S/N ratio can be expected in optical deflection sensing.
5. Small auto-fluorescence
Auto-fluorescence light from the silicon nitride cantilever is lessened comparing to
Olympus OMCL-TR/RC series silicon nitride cantilever.
In AFMs combined with a fluorescence optical microscope, the less auto-fluorescent
cantilever doesn’t obscure the light from the fluorescently-stained samples of interest. It
also makes the cantilever alignment to the point of interest easy.
2. Sharp tip
The tip apex is sharp with tip radius of 10 nm (Ave.). The sharp apex will contribute to
your high resolution measurements. The tip apex is made of silicon with a tetrahedral
shape, ideal for achieving a point terminated tip. The apex is further sharpened with our
exclusive sharpening process.
The tip is a two-stage probe. Whole tip height is 7 micron and the effective tip height is 3.5
micron, longer than the tips of Olympus OMCL-TR/RC series. The long tip makes it
p
ossible to measure relativel
y
lar
g
e sam
p
les like bio cells.
Table of contents
1 Preparation
2 Open the case
3 Picking up the cantilever chip from the case
4 Tetrahedral tip in two stage structure
5 Trouble-shooting guide
7 Information
6 Tips for better measurements
8 Specification 1s
page
Please handle our cantilevers carefully because they are fragile.
Caution
It is recommended that precautions be taken to prevent damage to the
cantilever tips from electrostatic discharge.
Caution
1) It is recommended that the cantilever case be opened in a clean environment like a clean bench
in order to avoid the cantilever being contaminated. Handling under an ionizer is recommended.
2) Avoid wearing clothes like woolen sweaters, fleece etc that give off the static electricity when
handling the cantilever cases and chips. Use of an anti-electrostatic mat and wrist band is
preferable.
3) In opening the case, put the plastic case label-side down on a desk.
The cantilevers are tip-side-up as viewed in the case.
4) Open the case.
3 Picking up the cantilever chip from the case
See the specification sheet of OLYMPUS Micro cantilevers at the last page of this manual.
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Avoid any contact with the cantilevers when you pull up the
cantilever tip from the case.
Caution
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10e
1) Pick up the chip by the long side with the tweezers and mount it in the AFM.

4 Tetrahedral tip in two stage structure
The apex of the tetrahedral tip becomes sharper due to an oxide sharpening process. The tip
angle in the final few hundred nano meter of the apex, is about 15 to 25 degrees (see below).
A two stage structure is employed in this probe.
(see left illustration)
The head of the probe tip is made of silicon and
tetrahedral in shape. The foot of the probe tips is
also made of silicon, but covered with a silicon
nitride film.
There is a discontinuity in the probe shape
midway between base and apex. The measurable
sample height therefore limited to the height of
the tip (3.5 micron).
As can be seen in the left illustration,
a tetrahedral tip is located near the triangular end
of the cantilever. When observing the cantilever
from the reflex side, a triangular pocket can be
seen near the free end of the cantilever, marking
the base of the tetrahedral tip. Operators can
therefore easily locate the tip position relative to
samples under optical microscope observation by
finding the center of the triangular pocket. This
makes alignment of the tip with sample very easy
in AFMs, combined with optical microscopes.
When you set your samples to your instrument, please consider the unique shape of the
tetrahedral tip, that is ‘good symmetry’, when viewing from front side and choose the direction
of the sample. When measuring long grooves, you can get an idea of what angle of the cut will
be quickly by aligning the cantilever along the grooves and scanning across at right angles
against grooves (see below).
The tip profile is symmetric with a half tip angle of 18 degrees macroscopically (see left below).
The side tip profile is asymmetric with a tip angle of 35 degrees. When the cantilever chip is
attached to a chip holder in your AFM with an angle, about 10 degrees, the asymmetry is
improved (see right below).
5 Trouble-shooting guide
Situations as described below may arise when using this type of cantilever.
Case 1: I tried optimizing imaging parameters first in air before. However good parameter
values cannot be found and the cantilever oscillated.
Scan line profile Scan line profile
Solution:
From the beginning, try to optimize the measurement condition in water,
e.g ., sensor
optics, cantilever sensitivity, I-gain, P-gain and frequency tuning.
Selecting a smaller oscillation amplitude of cantilever for AC mode AFM measurement
may gives better images because the tip is sharp and the cantilever is shorter than
conventional cantilevers.
Front view Side view
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Case 2: When adjusting light spot position on the photo detector of AFM sensor head, SUM
value indicating total incident light to the sensor, was small and rose to only 3 volts. Eight
volts can usually be expected with cantilever with a reflex metal coating.
Case 3: The SUM value changes gradually with time.
Solution:
The spot position may have moved with time because of thermal drift in your AFM
equipment. After the equipment is switched-on, allow some time for thermal
equilibration and a stable instrument.
Solution:
As far as we examined, most commercially available AFMs display a SUM value of 3
to 4 volts even in the light spot shines center of the cantilever. This is due to the small
size of the cantilever which is as large as the light spot.
Try to adjust the focus of the sensor optics again. The adjustment might improve the
SUM value. If possible, the adjustment should be done in the same environment as
that of measurements.
The chip is 0.3 mm thick. If you have used different type of cantilever chips before, for
instance with a chip thickness of 0.5 mm, the spot may be out of focus on the cantilever.
If possible, adjusting the focus of the spot in the focal depth direction might the
improve SUM value. Case 4: I have used this tip to image a standard flat grating pattern. However, the images
has a high degree of curvature, with the center of the image appearing brighter (higher) and
sinking down at the edge of the image.
Solution:
With using AFM equipments with a sensor head supported by a tripod mechanism, a
cantilever chip-shoulder might contact to the sample surface before the cantilever itself
contacts. This is due to use of short cantilever in the AFM which the sensor head.
Avoid rotation of the chip substrate in your chip holder.
The cantilever chips should aligned straight in the
cantilever chip holder.
In clipping the chip, the chip should slide ahead a little
than usual to avoid contact of the holder to the sample.
If your chip holder uses L-shape wire for clipping a
chip, the corner of the wire may hang over the clipping
wire bar after repeat use.
The position of the spot on the cantilever should be adjusted as shown in the diagram
left below.
If the spot is positioned at the extreme end of the cantilever, the laser may scatter,
thereby reducing the total incident light on the photo detector, leading to a small SUM
value. A cantilever chip in a chip holder
Then, adjust the level of the AFM sensor head in the AFM and make the AFM sensor
head and scanner parallel. In this procedure, use of a small water-leveling bottle is
effective. It is important to minimize the tilt, especially in the transverse direction
across the cantilever axis.
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3) Merit of small auto-fluorescence cantilevers
In AFM measurements of biological samples, AFM combined with a fluorescent optical
microscope is useful. After recognizing fluorescently-stained samples with the optical
microscope, a cantilever probe would locate to a point of interests on the sample. Conventional
silicon nitride cantilevers sometimes obstruct fluorescent optical microscopy of the sample
because of the large auto-fluorescent light generated from the cantilever.
This cantilever probe has a far lower auto-fluorescence output which will not obscure your
fluorescent sample.
2) Merit of low thermal noise cantilevers
Cantilevers vibrate a little in water due to Brownian motion noise. Such noise should be
minimized in force curve measurements for research of folding mechanism of DNAs, proteins
etc. Small size cantilevers show small Brownian motion noise and give good signal noise ratio
in the measurements.
Ver.2.0 June 22, 2009
OLYMPUS CORPORATION
Please contact following if you have any question on this user’s manual.
OLYMPUS CORPORATION
Microtechnology R&D Division
2-3 Kuboyama-cho Hachioji-shi Tokyo 192-8512 Japan
email : [email protected]
Please access to the web page of OLYMPUS micro cantilevers.
http://www.olympus.co.jp/probe
7 Information
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1) Merit of using cantilevers with a high resonant frequency
Resonant frequencies of the cantilevers decrease by factor of 4 to 5 in water because of the
water around the cantilevers. The lower resonance cantilever forces operators to wait for a
long time to acquire an image due to a slow scan speed. BL-AC40TS-C2 with a high resonant
frequency of 25 kHz (typ.) in water while being soft with spring constant of 0.1 N/m, enables
the fast imaging of biological samples in water. Of course, scan speed is deeply dependent on
the performance of the scanner and measurement samples. If a small and robust scanner with
high resonant frequency is used, one can expect 5 Hz line scan frequency in AC mode AFM
measurements in water, while 0.5 Hz with conventional silicon nitride cantilevers.
In observing a sparse biological sample on a substrate, a large area,
e.g. , a 10 micron square,
is scanned to locate a target of the sample. High-speed cantilevers are timesaving device for
AFM measurement particularly in the aiming procedure. Even with a slight improvement in
the scan speed by a factor of two or three, high-speed cantilevers are worth using because they
reduce the time required for observing such large areas before increasing magnification.
High-speed cantilever is a key to improve efficiency of the study in your lab..
Case 5: By placing a piece of paper in front of the photo detector of my AFM sensor head for
studying the position and the shape of the sensor light, several interference light spots are
observed. Those spots align in the direction corresponding to the transverse direction of the
cantilever axis.
Solution:
Adjust the optics of the AFM sensor to locating the primary spot to the center of the
photo detector.
6 Tips for better measurements
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