Langmuir, Vol.23, No.15, 7891-7894, 2007
Patterning of cantilevers with functionalized nanoparticles for combinatorial atomic force microscopy
In this letter, we demonstrate a substantial improvement in the ease of attaching and recognizing chemical libraries on cantilevers for use with combinatorial atomic force microscopy. These experiments exploit chemically modified nanoparticles as a means of encoding various chemistries onto the cantilevers with structures that can be readily distinguished. For the first time, 16 combinations of interactions were measured in a single experiment and in the same solution. Furthermore, these experiments have not begun to push the limits of the technique; it is plausible that in the very near future hundreds of interactions could be rapidly measured, helping to transform AFM into a truly high throughput technique.