AFM Induced Coarsening of Nanoparticle Networks

The image is a surface plot of a 1 micron square of nanoparticle network. The top half of the image has been scanned repeatedly with the AFM over an eight hour period, while the bottom half of the image was scanned just once in order to obtain this image. This technique can be used to gain direct control over the length scales of nanoparticle structures. Imaged with the MFP-3D AFM. Image courtesy of M. Blunt and P. Moriarty, University of Nottingham.