CombiScope™ 1000

CombiScope is equipped with the fully motorized cantilever holder and photodiode positioning that provides the automated click-on-a-button laser-to-tip alignment. This option dramatically simplifies the entire system adjustment process and provides the highest level of system adjustment reproducibility. In addition, after you installed a new cantilever of the same or even different type , the same spot (within a few microns repeatability) on your sample surface can be easily found and scanned without any extra searching steps. The CombiScope utilizes the closed loop, high-dynamics, 3-axis piezo-nanopositioning scanner from the leader in precision motion control, Physik Instrumente. The top level scanner is the heart of the system which enables it to achieve very high levels of linearity, highest possible stiffness and extremely high precision motion. The use of 1300nm AFM laser eliminates any interference with VIS light-sensitive biological and semiconductor samples. It also makes it possible to perform simultaneous AFM and fluorescence or Raman scattering measurements without any crosstalk for most popular UV-VIS-NIR (364-830 nm) excitation lasers. Besides integrated inverted optical microscope such as Nikon Eclipse Ti-U and Olympus IX-71 with Phase Contrast and DIC, the CombiScope can be equipped with the head which provides the top and side simultaneous optical access with planapochromat objectives (100x, NA=0.7 and 10x, NA=0.28 respectively). This option opens up the way to combine the upright and transmission configurations to study transparent as well as non-transparent samples with optical, Raman and scanning probe microscopy techniques. The standard CombiScope's sample holders accommodates all common sample substrates, including slides, cover slips and 35mm Petri dishes. The specially design liquid cell with heating and liquid perfusion capabilities enables for biological samples to be delicately maintained in their physiological environment and at temperatures up to 60°C. The CombiScope comes with all modern AFM operating modes in one single instrument, without any extra costs and units, including such application-specific modes as force and electric nanolithographies, piezoelectric force microscopy (PFM), Kelvin Probe Microscopy and frequency modulation AFM (dynamic force microscopy with built-in PLL). In addition, the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) head and Conductive AFM unit operating in the range 100fA ÷ 10uA (with 1nA, 100na and 10uA subranges software switchable and current noise of 60fA RMS for 1nA subrange) and near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) head are available as the options. Such exceptional versatility of the instrument makes it a perfect solution for nanoscience. Scanner resonant frequencies >7kHz in XY and >15kHz in Z are the highest in the AFM industry today.

The CombiScope 1000 Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM) is an advanced research instrument that provides the entry path for researchers in materials science, biology, spectroscopy and photonics. If you work with transparent samples either in air or in liquid towards nanoscale structures and near-field optical properties investigation, the CombiScope 1000 is the right solution for you. It perfectly combines inverted optical and atomic force microscopies and unleash all the power of both techniques providing the instrument adjustment and measurement automation, high resolution and integration flexibility only available from AIST-NT. Plus it can be easily upgraded to our turn-key OmegaScope AFM-Raman system.