Smart Scanning Ion-Conductance Microscopy Imaging Technique Using Horizontal Fast Scanning Method.

To solve extended acquisition time issues inherent in the conventional hopping-scanning mode of scanning ion-conductance microscopy (SICM), a new transverse-fast scanning mode (TFSM) is proposed. Because the transverse motion in SICM is not the detection direction and therefore presents no collision problem, it has the ability to move at high speed. In TSFM, the SICM probe gradually descends in the vertical/detection direction and rapidly scans in the transverse/nondetection direction. Further, the highest point that decides the hopping height of each scanning line can be quickly obtained. In conventional hopping mode, however, the hopping height is artificially set without a priori knowledge and is typically very large. Consequently, TFSM greatly improves the scanning speed of the SICM imaging system by effectively reducing the hopping height of each pixel. This study verifies the feasibility of this novel scanning method via theoretical analysis and experimental study, and compares the speed and quality of the scanning images obtained in the TFSM with that of the conventional hopping mode. The experimental results indicate that the TFSM method has a faster scanning speed than other SICM scanning methods while maintaining the quality of the images. Therefore, TFSM provides the possibility to quickly obtain high-resolution three-dimensional topographical images of extremely complex samples.