Nanotechnology Learning Modules and Atomic Force Microscopy of Neanderthal Stone Tools

This thesis uses a Veeco Icon Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to educate undergraduate students about the nanoscale world and to perform archaeological research. In chapter 2, an educational resource is developed to provide hands-on nanotechnology experience for undergraduate students. With the rapid growth of atomic force microscopy at many levels of industry and academia, it is important to expose the next generation to this technique. This learning module attempts to provide an experimental approach to learning about AFM phase imaging and its many applications. In chapters 3 and 4, AFM is used as one of several techniques for classifying the use of Neanderthal flint tools from Weasel Cave, Russia. These stone tools were identified as being used for tasks such as wood working, hide scraping, and meat cutting. Depending on the type of flint and the task involved, various degrees of abrasion occurred, leaving behind microwear polishes. These microwear traces are localized regions where the degree of polish is strongly influenced by the task being performed. The research presented in this thesis attempts to advance the study of microwear analysis using both qualitative and quantitative techniques: incident light microscopy, AFM, scanning electron microscopy, and optical interferometry

Microscopy and Analysis

Microscopes represent tools of the utmost importance for a wide range of disciplines. Without them, it would have been impossible to stand where we stand today in terms of understanding the structure and functions of organelles and cells, tissue composition and metabolism, or the causes behind various pathologies and their progression. Our knowledge on basic and advanced materials is also intimately intertwined to the realm of microscopy, and progress in key fields of micro- and nanotechnologies critically depends on high-resolution imaging systems. This volume includes a series of chapters that address highly significant scientific subjects from diverse areas of microscopy and analysis. Authoritative voices in their fields present in this volume their work or review recent trends, concepts, and applications, in a manner that is accessible to a broad readership audience from both within and outside their specialist area

Nanopositionnement 3D à base de mesure à courant tunnel et piezo-actionnement

The objective of this thesis was to elaborate high performance control strategies and their real-time validation on a tunneling current-based 3D nanopositioning system developed in GIPSA-lab. The thesis lies in the domain of micro-/nano mechatronic systems (MEMS) focused on applications of fast and precise positioning and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). More precisely, the aim is to position the metallic tunneling tip (like in STM) over the metallic surface using piezoelectric actuators in X, Y and Z directions and actuated micro-cantilever (like in Atomic Force Microscope AFM), electrostatically driven in Z direction, with high precision, over possibly high bandwidth. However, the presence of different adverse effects appearing at such small scale (e.g. measurement noise, nonlinearities of different nature, cross-couplings, vibrations) strongly affect the overall performance of the 3D system. Therefore a high performance control is needed. To that end, a novel 3D model of the system has been developed and appropriate control methods for such a system have been elaborated. First the focus is on horizontal X and Y directions. The nonlinear hysteresis and creep effects exhibited by piezoelectric actuators have been compensated and a comparison between different compensation methods is provided. Modern SISO and MIMO robust control methods are next used to reduce high frequency effects of piezo vibration and cross-couplings between X and Y axes. Next, the horizontal motion is combined with the vertical one (Z axis) with tunneling current and micro-cantilever control. Illustrative experimental results for 3D nanopositioning of tunneling tip, as well as simulation results for surface topography reconstruction and multi-mode cantilever positioning, are finally given.L'objectif de la thèse est l'élaboration de lois de commande de haute performance et leur validation en temps réel sur une plateforme expérimentale 3D de nano-positionnement à base de courant à effet tunnel, développée au laboratoire GIPSA-lab. Elle s'inscrit donc dans le cadre des systèmes micro-/nano-mécatronique (MEMS), et de la commande. Plus précisément, le principal enjeu considéré est de positionner la pointe métallique à effet tunnel (comme en microscopie à effet tunnel STM) contre la surface métallique en utilisant des actionneurs piézoélectriques en X, Y et Z et un micro-levier (comme en microscopie à force atomique AFM) actionné électrostatiquement en Z avec une grande précision et une bande passante élevée. Cependant, la présence de différents effets indésirables apparaissant à cette petite échelle (comme le bruit de mesure, des non-linéarités de natures différentes, les couplages, les vibrations) affectent fortement la performance globale du système 3D. En conséquence, une commande de haute performance est nécessaire. Pour cela, un nouveau modèle 3D du système a été développé et des méthodes de contrôle appropriées pour un tel système ont été élaborées. Tout d'abord l'accent est mis sur de positionnement selon les axes X et Y. Les effets d'hystérésis et de fluage non linéaires présents dans les actionneurs piézoélectriques ont été compensés et une comparaison entre les différentes méthodes de compensation est effectuée. Des techniques modernes de commande robuste SISO et MIMO sont ensuite utilisées pour réduire les effets des vibrations piézoélectriques et des couplages entre les axes X et Y. Le mouvement horizontal est alors combiné avec le mouvement vertical (Axe Z) et une commande du courant tunnel et du micro-levier. Des résultats expérimentaux illustrent le nano positionnement 3D de la pointe, et des résultats de simulation pour la reconstruction de la topographie de la surface ainsi que le positionnement du micro-levier à base d'un modèle multi-modes

Artificial Intelligence in Materials Science: Applications of Machine Learning to Extraction of Physically Meaningful Information from Atomic Resolution Microscopy Imaging

Materials science is the cornerstone for technological development of the modern world that has been largely shaped by the advances in fabrication of semiconductor materials and devices. However, the Moore’s Law is expected to stop by 2025 due to reaching the limits of traditional transistor scaling. However, the classical approach has shown to be unable to keep up with the needs of materials manufacturing, requiring more than 20 years to move a material from discovery to market. To adapt materials fabrication to the needs of the 21st century, it is necessary to develop methods for much faster processing of experimental data and connecting the results to theory, with feedback flow in both directions. However, state-of-the-art analysis remains selective and manual, prone to human error and unable to handle large quantities of data generated by modern equipment. Recent advances in scanning transmission electron and scanning tunneling microscopies have allowed imaging and manipulation of materials on the atomic level, and these capabilities require development of automated, robust, reproducible methods.Artificial intelligence and machine learning have dealt with similar issues in applications to image and speech recognition, autonomous vehicles, and other projects that are beginning to change the world around us. However, materials science faces significant challenges preventing direct application of the such models without taking physical constraints and domain expertise into account.Atomic resolution imaging can generate data that can lead to better understanding of materials and their properties through using artificial intelligence methods. Machine learning, in particular combinations of deep learning and probabilistic modeling, can learn to recognize physical features in imaging, making this process automated and speeding up characterization. By incorporating the knowledge from theory and simulations with such frameworks, it is possible to create the foundation for the automated atomic scale manufacturing

Electrical switching of ferro-rotational order in nano-thick 1T-TaS2_2 crystals

Hysteretic switching of domain states is a salient character of all ferroic materials and the foundation for their multifunctional applications. Ferro-rotational order is emerging as a new type of ferroic order featuring structural rotations, but its controlled switching remains elusive due to its invariance under both time reversal and spatial inversion. Here, we demonstrate electrical switching of ferro-rotational domain states in nanometer-thick 1T-TaS$_2$ crystals in its charge-density-wave phases. Cooling from the high-symmetry phase to the ferro-rotational phase under an external electric field induces domain state switching and domain wall formation, realized in a simple two-terminal configuration using a volt-scale voltage. Although the electric field does not couple with the order due to symmetry mismatch, it drives domain wall propagation to give rise to reversible, durable, and nonvolatile isothermal state switching at room temperature. These results pave the path for manipulation of the ferro-rotational order and its nanoelectronic applications

Exciton-polaritons in lattices: A non-linear photonic simulator

AbstractMicrocavity polaritons are mixed light–matter quasiparticles with extraordinary nonlinear properties, which can be easily accessed in photoluminescence experiments. Thanks to the possibility of designing the potential landscape of polaritons, this system provides a versatile photonic platform to emulate 1D and 2D Hamiltonians. Polaritons allow transposing to the photonic world some of the properties of electrons in solid-state systems, and to engineer Hamiltonians for photons with novel transport properties. Here we review some experimental implementations of polariton Hamiltonians using lattice geometries

Imagerie de synthèse en microscopie tunnel (STM) intrusive

Microscopie à effet tunnel -- Contexte d'utilisation -- Intérêt de la modélisation STM -- Première images STM modélisées -- Évolution des approches numériques -- Importance de la composition chimique -- Objectifs -- Vue d'ensemble -- Méthode des liaisons fortes -- Méthode de Hückel étendu -- Fonctions de base -- Formation des matrices -- Élargissement des pics -- Diagonalisation -- Méthode directe -- Méthode itérative -- Courant tunnel -- Méthode de Bardeen -- Facteurs de Fermi -- Calcul de Mst -- Approximation de Tersoff-Hamann -- Mise à jour d'une image -- Validation -- Qualité de l'image -- Performances -- Mode instrusif -- Taille du système

A communications system perspective for dynamic mode atomic force microscopy, with applications to high-density storage and nanoimaging

In recent times, the atomic force microscope (AFM) has been used in various fields like biology, chemistry, physics and medicine for obtaining atomic level images. The AFM is a high-resolution microscope which can provide the resolution on the order of fractions of a nanometer. It has applications in the field of material characterization, probe based data storage, nano-imaging etc. The prevalent mode of using the AFM is the static mode where the cantilever is in continuous contact with the sample. This is harsh on the probe and the sample. The problem of probe and sample wear can be partly addressed by using the dynamic mode operation with the high quality factor cantilevers. In the dynamic mode operation, the cantilever is forced sinusoidally using a dither piezo. The oscillating cantilever gently taps the sample which reduces the probe-sample wear. In this dissertation, we demonstrate that viewing the dynamic mode operation from a communication systems perspective can yield huge gains in nano-interrogation speed and fidelity. In the first part of the dissertation, we have considered a data storage system that operates by encoding information as topographic profiles on a polymer medium. A cantilever probe with a sharp tip (few nm radius) is used to create and sense the presence of topographic profiles, resulting in a density of few Tb per square inch. The usage of the static mode is harsh on the probe and the media. In this work, the high quality factor dynamic mode operation, which alleviates the probe-media wear, is analyzed. The read operation is modeled as a communication channel which incorporates system memory due to inter-symbol interference and the cantilever state. We demonstrate an appropriate level of abstraction of this complex nanoscale system that obviates the need for an involved physical model. Next, a solution to the maximum likelihood sequence detection problem based on the Viterbi algorithm is devised. Experimental and simulation results demonstrate that the performance of this detector is several orders of magnitude better than the performance of other existing schemes. In the second part of the dissertation, we have considered another interesting application of the dynamic mode AFM in the field of nano-imaging. Nano-imaging has played a vital role in biology, chemistry and physics as it enables interrogation of material with sub-nanometer resolution. However, current nano-imaging techniques are too slow to be useful in the high speed applications of interest such as studying the evolution of certain biological processes over time that involve very small time scales. In this work, we present a high speed one-bit imaging technique using the dynamic mode AFM with a high quality factor cantilever. We propose a communication channel model for the cantilever based nano-imaging system. Next, we devise an imaging algorithm that incorporates a learned prior from the previous scan line while detecting the features on the current scan line. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm provides significantly better image resolution compared to current nano-imaging techniques at high scanning speed. While modeling the probe-based data storage system and the cantilever based nano-imaging system, it has been observed that the channel models exhibit the behavior similar to intersymbol-interference (ISI) channel with data dependent time-correlated noise. The Viterbi algorithm can be adapted for performing maximum likelihood sequence detection in such channels. However, the problem of finding an analytical upper bound on the bit error rate of the Viterbi detector in this case has not been fully investigated. In the third part of the dissertation, we have considered a subset of the class of ISI channels with data dependent Gauss-Markov noise. We derive an upper bound on the pairwise error probability (PEP) between the transmitted bit sequence and the decoded bit sequence that can be expressed as a product of functions depending on current and previous states in the (incorrect) decoded sequence and the (correct) transmitted sequence. In general, the PEP is asymmetric. The average BER over all possible bit sequences is then determined using a pairwise state diagram. Simulations results demonstrate that analytic bound on BER is tight in high SNR regime

Microscopic characterization reveals the diversity of EVs secreted by GFP-HAS3 expressing MCF7 cells

We have shown the connection of hyaluronan synthesis activity with the enhanced shedding of extracellular vesicles, but detailed morphological analysis of those hyaluronan-induced EVs is still missing. In this study we utilized a comprehensive set of high-resolution imaging techniques to characterize in high detail the size and morphology of EVs originating from stable MCF7 breast cancer cell line and transiently transfected cells expressing GFP-HAS3. To avoid possible artefacts or loss of EVs resulting from the isolation process, special attention was paid to analysis of EVs in situ in monolayer and in 3D cultures. The results of this study show that GFP-HAS3 expressing MCF7 cells produce morphologically diverse EVs but also demonstrates the variation in results obtained with different experimental setup, which emphasizes the importance of comparison between different methods when interpreting the observations.Peer reviewe