Atomic Force Microscope - Veeco

Overview

• In 2010, Bruker Acquired Vecco's Metrology and Instrumentation division
• Contact: +1 805 967-2700 / Support.AFM@bruker.com
  • https://www.bruker.com/service/information-communication/helpdesk/surface-analysis.html
• They seem to freely provide newer versions of the offline tool called NanoScope Analysis.
• Gwyddion is an open source visualization and data anlalysis tool for SPM.

Hardware

Overview of Control Electronics

• Some whitebox P4 3GHz
  • Windows XP
  • 160GB IDE disk, with lots of bad sectors
  • Matrox Dual Head video card. Likely some AGP.
  • Two PATA IDE ports, two SATA ports available
• NS5 Controller (840-010-300) Rev. M
• Picoforce controller (840-002-300)
• Camera (standalone, interfaces with Video Monitor): Sony XC-555
  • Apparently uses a 1/2" IT Sensor, NF-Mount. Apparently easily adapted to c-mount?
    • https://cinequipt.com/cms-files/sony-xc-555-brochure.pdf

Overview of The Microscope

• diMultiMode V Base
  • Scanner: It seems we have multiple scanners???
    • Current one in place has an "E" on it
      • Per the Bruker Manual, this looks suspiciously like the "Vertical 'E' Scanner"
    • Another one in the box looks similar and has "PF" on it.
    • Another one in the box looks smaller 8349A written on it.
      • Per the Bruker Manual, this looks suspiciously like the "Non-vertical 'E' Scanner"
    • Another one in the box looks suspiciously like the STM converter head for the MultiMode instrument.
• SPM Head
  • Where the following components live:
    • Photodiode
    • Laser & X and Y Axis adjustment
    • Photodiode adjustment
    • Cantilever

Overview of the OMV (Optical Viewing System)

• An optional optical camera which helps in aligning the microscope. Mounted vertically over the head of the SPM to view both the sample surface and tip.
• Simply a camera fed into a CCTV monitor.
  • Can optionally be fed into the computer via the capture card and, BNC cable, and BNC to RCA adapter.
• Fiber-illuminated

Connectivity

• Computer interfaces to the NS5 (bottom, larger box), with some very intense PCI card donning FPGAs, probably ADCs/DACs, and god knows what else.
• Picoforce box connects to hand-held pendant via its front-panel (called the angler).

Service Log

January 2020 / pzieba

• Optical drive bad. Harvested from nearby unsuspecting computers.
• While we're at it, why not harvest two 512MB sticks of memory...
  • Memory successfully upgraded from 2GB -> 3GB
• Ran preliminary ddrescue pass.
• Modified registry on live machine with "mergeide", paving way to move existing installtion to another machine, different disk controller, etc.
• Ran lengthy ddrescue pass to recover hard drive data, starting on 1/10/20 and ending on 1/14/20.
  • 41 errors spanning 540kB of unrecoverable data.
    • 3 Primary Partitions of interest (All NTFS, type 7):
    • Drive C (40GB, Primary, Boot, Windows XP SP2).
      • 16.7GB Used. ddru_ntfsfindbad results: 25 damaged files. 2 damaged folders.
    • Drive D (40GB, Primary)
      • 1.37GB Used. ddru_ntfsfindbad reports no errors.
    • Drive E (70.9GB, Primary)
      • 1.54GB Used. ddru_ntfsfindbad reports no errors.
• Cloned recovered image onto an old 250GB SATA hard drive that was brought in.
• Move all files listed as corrupt by ddru_ntfsfindbad off of filesystem. Force deletion of certain locked files in "system32" using a linux live-cd.
  • System files magically autorestored via Windows File Protection / SFC.
• After some BIOS setting nonsense, is bootable, and significantly more responsive.
• Analysis of System Event Logs indicate bad blocks are not a recent occurrence (due to storage/transport), but date back to the earliest available log entries (4/16/2016)
• Cloned onto newly ordered/arrived 256GB Solid state drive using ntfsclone via clonezilla.
  • Modified partition table layout such that:
    • Drive C: grown from 40GB -> 80GB
    • Drive D: and drive E: have been left (more or less?) at same sizes as before, but have been successfully 4k aligned for SSD performance.
    • Drive C: was not 4k aligned due to boot sector issues. Can XP be made to tolerate this sort of thing??? Who knows. Whatever, good enough.
    • Drive C: Remains with a bunch of bad sectors in NTFS -- these should be cleared.
      • Turns out chkdsk /b only works in Windows Vista.... Will bring in recovery disc...
• Firing up subsystems.
  • Optical microscope boom vertical stop adjusted with a 3/16" Allen Key so as to avoid crashes by fools and the spastic.
  • TV works, camera sensor squared up.
  • Focus successfully achieved on sample stage and sample tip.
• Successfully used ntfsfix -b to clear all bad blocks from NTFS filesystem for C:

January 2022 / pzieba

• AFM Has been moved upstairs to the 4th floor. Cabling is near completed.

Features and accessories

Probe Holders

See "Multimode V - SPM Instruction Manual" page 20 - probe holders for visual identification. We have the following probe holders:

• One Standard "Contact and Tapping mode" Probe holder
• One "TR" probe holder
• One Tapping Mode Fluid Cell
  • See Chapter 7 "Fluid Operation" of the "Multimode V - SPM Instruction Manual" - 004-995-000, 004-995-100

Scanner Heads

• Vertical "E" 8437EVLR

Reference Samples

• 10um, 180nm depth VGRP-15M
• Platinum Coated Calibration grid 1um x 1um.
  • Possibly 100nm pits if it belongs with the bag labeled "CAL GRTE 1UM XY PITCH 100NM PITS PLAT CT"
• VLSI Standards Model #STR3-1800P. 180nm???
• 2x Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG)
• MICA for atomic scale calibration

Software

The Nanoscope Software contains two modes of operation: Realtime and Image Processing/Offline. Latest versions of the Offline software can be freely downloaded from Bruker. Key concepts to understand about the software:

• Workspace - A configuration of views and parameters
• Realtime Settings are stored in .bag files.