General Description
The AcademiaTM is an affordable AFM system with all the functionality of a research AFM microscope which can function effectively for teaching laboratories.
The AcademiaTM system itself can be upgraded at any time to include the additional functionality of any of the Nanonics Microscope range.
After carefully reviewing the needs of our customers, the Nanonics team of designers and scientists have put together a package designed to meet the three criteria of reliability, simplicity and affordability.
With the AcademiaTM AFM head, the customer receives a complete package consisting of AFM controller, familiar LabVIEW based software package, computer and binocular optical microscope for viewing the sample during the scanning process. Also provided are suggestions for experiments for teaching AFM with the open architecture that allows for full optical view of all AFM operations.
Key Features
- Specially designed for teaching laboratories and high quality state of the art research in scanned probe microscopy
- Simplicity and Elegance by Design
- Easy to operate with complete reliability
- Free optical axis from above in terms of both the microscope design and the design of the probe
- Rapid probe placement with real-time optical viewing for teaching purposes
- On-line viewing of all AFM operations with Video Link for ease of teaching
- High quality imaging displayed in real-time
- LabVIEW Software and Controller
- Allows for all AFM operations
- Comes with defined experiments for an instruction program
- Uses silicon and glass exposed tip probes such as electrical coax probes, thermal probes
- Nanochemical lithography with cantilevered nanopipette probes
- Upgradable to the complete line of Nanonics products without need to change controller or software
Design
The AcademiaTM Package
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To ensure complete customer satisfaction, Nanonics has a comprehensive customer support policy. This starts with three days of on-site installation and training from one of our expert application scientists and continues throughout the customer's use of the system. Specialist advice and support relating to the specific research being conducted with the system is also provided. Upgrades to other Nanonics SPM packages are available to AcademiaTM users.
High quality Imaging Displayed in Real Time
The AcademiaTM succeeds in producing scanning images of the highest quality. We achieve lower noise levels by minimizing the mechanical parts of the system and simplifying the electronics of the controller. This raises the overall signal to noise ratio, therefore enabling fainter signals to be built into the images.
It is the small dimensions of our scanner combined with our high signal to noise ratio that allows us to produce high resolution images quickly and repeatably.
Easy to Operate
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Our years of customer interaction have taught us how to make a system user friendly. With our familiar LabVIEW software, the customer will be able to produce quality images immediately upon installation. Changing the scanning probe is quick and effortless with the AcademiaTM's flip-top scan head. The probe can be removed and a new one replaced with no tools and no disturbance to the sample. |
Simplicity and Elegance by Design
Quality, durability and ease of use are most often the result of elegantly simple design solutions.
Our experience, gained from years of AFM development and customer interaction, has resulted in an AFM scan head assembly with fewer individual components than any AFM system available today. This provides for a more robust system, moving AFM instrumentation to a higher level of reliability and consistency, which is being increasingly demanded by today's AFM operator. The AcademiaTM scan head has a unique open architecture and the most user friendly design of any research grade AFM system. As a direct consequence of Nanonics superior design, the AcademiaTM can be used as an add-on AFM to a customers existing microscopy set-up. The top down optical access, characteristic of the AcademiaTM system, allows the microscope head to be placed under the objective lens of any upright microscope, without restricting any of the functionality of the microscope or objective.
LabVIEW Software and Controller
The AcademiaTM system is packaged with the Nanonics developed AFM controller and LabVIEW software, both designed for ease of use. Our customers want to be able to start producing quality images as soon as the system is installed. This is precisely what they can do with the familiar LabVIEW software format. One of the main advantages of using a LabVIEW package is the ability to continue writing additional modules according to the user's specific requirements. This aspect of the AcademiaTM system provides the ultimate flexibility in system software
Affordability
The key aspect to the AcademiaTM system is a low price tag attached to a high quality research grade AFM. The AcademiaTM shows that reliability and quality can be affordable for today's market.
Specifications
| Parameter | Specification |
| Atomic Force Microscopy | Contact, non-contact, intermittent-contact |
| Feedback Mechanism | Optical beam deflection |
| Scanning/Sample | |
| Scan Range | 70micron XY,5micron Z (10 micron XY on request) |
| Step Size | XY: 0.005 nm; Z: 0.002 nm |
| Maximum Sample Size | 15mm X 15mm |
| Probes | |
| AFM-Probes | Any commercially available AFM probes including cantilevered or pulled glass probes |
| Specialized Probes | Cantilevered probes for electrical or thermal measurements AFM controlled Nanopens for gas and liquid chemical delivery. Custom probes available on request |
| Optics | |
| Viewing Optics | Binocular microscopewith boom stand |
| Control | |
| Controller | Nanonics AFM controller |
| Software | User friendly Lab VIEW based AFM software |
