Overview
- Editors:
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Pier Carlo Braga
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Department of Pharmacology School of Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
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Davide Ricci
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Department of Biophysical and Electronic Engineering, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
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Table of contents (28 protocols)
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The Basics of Atomic Force Microscopy
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- Davide Ricci, Pier Carlo Braga
Pages 3-12
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- Davide Ricci, Pier Carlo Braga
Pages 13-23
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- Davide Ricci, Pier Carlo Braga
Pages 25-37
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- Martin Hegner, Youri Arntz
Pages 39-49
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Morphostructural Analysis of Cellular Structures
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- Gillian R. Bushell, Colm Cahill, Sverre Myhra, Gregory S. Watson
Pages 53-67
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- Stylliani Lydataki, Miltiadis K. Tsilimbaris, Eric S. Lesniewska, Alain Bron, Iannis G. Pallikaris
Pages 69-83
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- Hiroko Takano, Kazuhiro Abe
Pages 85-94
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- Gerlinde Bischoff, Anke Bernstein, David Wohlrab, Hans-Joachim Hein
Pages 105-124
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- Davide Ricci, Massimo Grattarola, Mariateresa Tedesco
Pages 125-140
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- Grayson W. Marshall Jr., Sally J. Marshall, Mehdi Balooch, John H. Kinney
Pages 141-159
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- Jason J. Davis, Trevor Powell, H. Allen O. Hill
Pages 161-178
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- Pier Carlo Braga, Davide Ricci
Pages 179-188
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Subcellular Structures Investigation
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Front Matter
Pages 189-189
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- Luis Felipe Jiménez-García, María de Lourdes Segura-Valdez
Pages 191-199
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- Olga I. Kiselyova, Igor V. Yaminsky
Pages 217-230
About this book
The natural, biological, medical, and related sciences would not be what they are today without the microscope. After the introduction of the optical microscope, a second breakthrough in morphostructural surface analysis occurred in the 1940s with the development of the scanning electron microscope (SEM), which, instead of light (i. e. , photons) and glass lenses, uses electrons and electromagnetic lenses (magnetic coils). Optical and scanning (or transmission) electron microscopes are called “far-field microscopes” because of the long distance between the sample and the point at which the image is obtained in comparison with the wavelengths of the photons or electrons involved. In this case, the image is a diffraction pattern and its resolution is wavelength limited. In 1986, a completely new type of microscopy was proposed, which, without the use of lenses, photons, or electrons, directly explores the sample surface by means of mechanical scanning, thus opening up unexpected possibilities for the morphostructural and mechanical analysis of biological specimens. These new scanning probe microscopes are based on the concept of near-field microscopy, which overcomes the problem of the limited diffraction-related resolution inherent in conventional microscopes. Located in the immediate vicinity of the sample itself (usually within a few nanometers), the probe records the intensity, rather than the interference signal, thus significantly improving resolution. Since the most we- known microscopes of this type operate using atomic forces, they are frequently referred to as atomic force microscopes (AFMs).
Editors and Affiliations
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Department of Pharmacology School of Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Pier Carlo Braga
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Department of Biophysical and Electronic Engineering, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
Davide Ricci