[11a-W933-1~11] 6.6 Probe Microscopy

[11a-W933-10] Analysis of Critical Casimir Effect Using Variable-Temperature AFM

〇Masami Kageshima¹ (1.Osaka Electro-Comm. Univ.)

Keywords:critical Casimir effect, atomic force microscopy, phase separation

Critical Casimir effect arising from increase in correlation length near the critical phase separation temperature of binary mixture was analyzed by using variable-temperature atomic force microscopy. Interaction between a glass colloid particle attached on the AFM cantilever and a mica substrate was measured via magnetic modulation technique in a binary mixture of lutidine and water. A characteristic rise in the measured force gradient was observed with temperature increase from 0.6 ºC below the critical temperature by a step of 0.1 ºC within a probe-substrate separation of about 0.1 μm.