[M-IS36_1PM1] Interface- and nano-phenomena on crystal growth

[MIS36-10] Observation of admolecule on the crystal surface in liquid by non-contact atomic force microscopy

*Ken NAGASHIMA¹ (1.Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Japan)

Keywords:AFM, Crystal growth, Atomic resolution image, Admolecule, Protein crystal

The highest resolution AFM images are obtained by non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM). Fukuma et al. (2005) succeeded in obtaining true atomic resolution images by NC-AFM in spite of the liquid environment [1]. We are interested in the crystal growth process. However, previous NC-AFM studies were only about insoluble crystals in liquid. NC-AFM is not good at investigating the moving surface because NC-AFM is a very sensitive method for detecting weak interaction force. Therefore, we tried to observe several soluble crystals in liquid by NC-AFM at first. At first, we observed tetragonal lysozyme (110) face in saturated solution by using homebuilt Non-Contact AFM (NC-AFM). We could observe individual molecules on the lysozyme (110) face in liquid for the first time and determine the crystallographic position of each molecule [2]. In addition, we also observed admolecule and point defect on the lysozyme surface in liquid.Acknowledgments We thank Prof. S. Morita of Osaka University, M. Abe of Nagoya University, and Shimadzu Corporation for observation of AFM.[1] T. Fukuma et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 034101 (2005).[2] K. Nagashima et al., J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 28, C4C11 (2010).