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Effect of probe lifting height in jumping mode AFM for living cell imaging

  • Can Cheng
    ,
  • Xingyue Wang
    ,
  • Jianjun Dong
    ,
  • Zuobin Wang
  • Changchun University of Science and Technology
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is one of the effective methods for imaging the morphological and physical properties of living cells in a near-physiological environment. However, several problems caused by the adhesion of living cells and extension of the cell membranes seriously affect the image quality during living cell imaging, hindering the study of living cells. In this work, jumping mode AFM imaging was used to image living cells at varied probe lifting heights to meet image quality requirements, and image quality related to the probe lifting height is discussed in detail. The jumping mode was divided into three parts based on the varying heights of the lifted probe, namely near-contact mode, half-jumping mode, and full-jumping mode, and the causes of their imaging drawbacks were analyzed. At an appropriate lifting height, the probe can be completely free from the influence of cell adhesion and self-excited oscillation, thus avoiding the occurrence of “trail” phenomena and invalid points in the imaging of living cells and improving the image quality. Additionally, this work provides a new approach to calculating the lateral force through the adhesion of trace and retrace scanning at a low height, which is important for studying the extension characteristics of the cell membrane.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Article number

24

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Nanomanufacturing and Metrology (Volume 6, Issue 1)

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 07/04/2023
  • Published - 03/07/2023

Publication status

Published - 03/07/2023

ISSN

2520-811X

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/625976
  • Scopus: 85163830037

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