| 摘要 |
The present invention is a scanning ion conductance microscope, more particularly a scanning ion conductance microscope operating in high-speed constant current mode, wherein a constant current is applied to a pipette electrode using a signal proportional to the magnitude of ion conductance resistance inversely proportional to a distance between a pipette aperture and a sample surface as a feedback signal, such that low speed problems which are a drawback of existing microscopes operating in distance-modulation mode can be overcome enabling scanning at high speed, and poor sensitivity of existing microscopes operating in constant current mode can be overcome providing high-sensitivity properties comparable to those in the distance-modulation mode. Unlike existing scanning ion conductance microscopes operating in constant voltage mode, wherein a pipette installed in the microscope has a pipette electrode with a constant applied voltage, the pipette electrode arranged inside the aperture of the pipette to sense a change in ion current value flowing through the aperture making change into an image, the scanning ion conductance microscope according to the present invention applies a constant current to the pipette electrode, such that, if a distance between the sample surface and the pipette aperture decreases, the ion conductance resistance sharply increases by approximately 1/distance, being very sensitive to a distance change, and this signal proportional to the ion conductance resistance is used as a feedback signal to enable high-speed, high-sensitivity and high-resolution imaging. |
