Development of In-situ AFM for Ocean Nanosensing

Abstract

We introduce a novel in-situ underwater AFM system, which is mountable on underwater vehicles. The mission for the system is to visualize the nature of micro samples in deep sea with high-spatial-resolution down to nanometer scale. The system is composed of an underwater AFM, microfluidic devices, and the mount mechanisms for underwater vehicles. We have developed a novel sample stage, which equipped with sample filtration mechanisms using a membrane filter. The forthcoming field exploration using the in-situ underwater AFM system would reveal new findings of deep sea.