Where to Buy: AFM Probes
One of the most important components of an AFM is the probe. AFM probes are made of a chip or substrate, a cantilever, and a tip. Usually, these are manufactured in one piece of silicon (or silicon nitride, Si3N4), by MEMS manufacturing techniques. In this way a wafer (with 400 or more probes) is manufactured at one time, with reasonable reproducibility of probe characteristics across the probes.
Design of typical AFM probe, showing the substrate, cantilever and tip (probe).
Importantly, nearly all probes are interchangeable, so it’s possible to use probes from different manufacturers in your instrument. Thus, there is a fairly competitive market in AFM probes, and you can find a variety of probes from value to high-cost offerings, and an enormous range of probes, with different coatings, and physical properties, suitable for a wide range of applications. There are so many different probes here, that it’s not worth listing them all, so this page just links to the manufacturers of probes that I know of. Some companies resell probes from other manufacturers. But here I try to list the manufacturers, where they sell direct. The manufacturers are listed in no particular order.
AFM Probe Manufacturers
Veeco | Veeco manufacture a huge range of probes, as well as reselling probes from various other producers. They have many representatives, as well as selling direct in the U.S. |
Applied NanoStructures | AppNano manufacture a wide range of standard and speciality probes- they are resold by various companies, and also sell direct. |
Nanoworld | Nanoworld manufacture a very large range of standard and speciality probes - resold by various companies. Also branded as nanosensors, and budgetsensors. |
Mikromasch | Mikromasch manufacture a very wide range of probes, both standard and speciality. They sell direct and are re-sold. |
NT-MDT | NT-MDT manufacture many standard and specialty probes, including with a wide range of coatings |
Olympus
| Olympus manufacture many “standard” and novel probes, including the biolever-often used for force spectroscopy. They do not sell their own probes, but they are sold by a large number of companies. |
Team Nanotec | Team Nanotec make a variety of specialist AFM probes, including metrology tips, high-aspect ratio probes, MFM probes, etc. They both sell direct and are re-sold |
Asylum Research | Asylum make their own speciality MFM probes, as well as reselling various other brands. |
K-Tek Nanotechnology | K-TeK manufacture a variety of standard and speciality AFM probes |
If I any have missed any manufacturers ,or made any other errors, please feel free to make suggestions, via the contact page.
