TY - JOUR
T1 - How Narrow Can a Meniscus Be?
AU - Jang, Joonkyung
AU - Schatz, George C.
AU - Ratner, Mark A.
PY - 2004/1/1
Y1 - 2004/1/1
N2 - A water meniscus naturally forms in air between an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip and a substrate. This nanoscale meniscus produces a capillary force on the AFM, and also serves as a molecular transport channel in dip-pen nanolithography (DPN). A stable meniscus is a necessary condition for DPN and for the validity of the Kelvin equation commonly applied to AFM experiments. Lattice gas Monte Carlo simulations show that, due to thermal fluctuation, a stable meniscus has a lower limit in width. We find a minimum width of 5 molecular diameters (1.9 nm) when the tip becomes atomically sharp (terminated by a single atom).
AB - A water meniscus naturally forms in air between an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip and a substrate. This nanoscale meniscus produces a capillary force on the AFM, and also serves as a molecular transport channel in dip-pen nanolithography (DPN). A stable meniscus is a necessary condition for DPN and for the validity of the Kelvin equation commonly applied to AFM experiments. Lattice gas Monte Carlo simulations show that, due to thermal fluctuation, a stable meniscus has a lower limit in width. We find a minimum width of 5 molecular diameters (1.9 nm) when the tip becomes atomically sharp (terminated by a single atom).
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.085504
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.085504
M3 - Article
C2 - 14995789
AN - SCOPUS:1842557526
VL - 92
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
SN - 0031-9007
IS - 8
ER -