Oxford Instruments Asylum Research proudly announces that a Cypher™ atomic force microscope (AFM) was recently acquired by Dr. Ken Nakajima after a rigorous selection process. Dr. Nakajima is a Principal Investigator at Tohoku University and was recently appointed as a Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he is a leading materials scientist with numerous highly-cited publications utilizing AFM for the investigation of polymers. He joins a growing number of polymer scientists who have chosen the Cypher AFM for its exceptional performance and superior breadth of nanomechanical measurement techniques.

“Asylum’s Cypher is clearly the best choice for polymer research,” said Dr. Nakajima. “When I compared Cypher to the alternatives, it became very obvious that Asylum Research is far ahead of their competitors in pushing the limits of AFM performance and developing tools for nanomechanical measurements. My research increasingly requires methods for characterizing the viscoelastic response of polymers and the ability to apply more sophisticated contact mechanics models. Those capabilities just don’t exist on other AFMs, but Asylum’s Cypher offers many options, including AM-FM Viscoelastic Mapping Mode and a much more flexible and adaptable implementation of fast force curve mapping.”

Asylum Research has been at the forefront of innovation developing nanomechanical characterization techniques. AM-FM and Contact Resonance Viscoelastic Mapping Modes enable the quantitative mapping of both the elastic modulus and the viscous response (i.e. loss modulus or loss tangent). Asylum Research is the only AFM manufacturer to offer high resolution, quantitative imaging of the viscous response. This is an essential capability for polymer scientists since virtually all polymers exhibit significant viscoelasticity. Additionally, Fast Force Mapping Mode enables quantitative high-speed elastic modulus mapping. Unlike others, Asylum’s Fast Force Mapping Mode captures every force curve in the image, measures both deflection and the Z sensor signal, and supports both common indentation models like Hertz, Sneddon, and DMT along with more advanced models including JKR and Oliver-Pharr.