By Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication
Scanning Ion-Conductance Microscopy (SICM) is a characterisation technique which uses electrodes as a probe tip to monitor the ionic current flowing in and out of the tip. As the gap widens, the ionic flow increases giving an indication of distance from the tip to the sample. SICM allows for the characterisation of the surface topography of materials in aqueous solutions at a nanometre level. The non-destructive nature of the measurement allows for the observation of living tissues and cells, and other biological samples. It is able to detect steep profile changes in samples and can be used to determine the mobility of living cells during their migrations. MCN’s SICM is the ICnanoS2. The scan head offers a state-of-the-art closed-loop scan system that ensures accurate measurements, low noise levels and sub-nanometre resolution. With an XY scan range of 100μm and a Z scan range of 25μm, it is suited for imaging both living cells and materials. It allows up to 15mm movement while maintaining sub-nanometre positioning accuracy. The scan head fits a wide variety of modern models of inverted microscopes and integrates with many complementary techniques including confocal microscopy, scanning electrochemical microscopy and electrophysiology.
