The influence of instrumental parameters on the adhesion force in a flat-on-flat contact geometry

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used to measure the adhesion force between a flat Si(0 0 1) wafer and a micrometer sized flat silicon AFM tip. Force–distance curves have been recorded at different setpoints in order to elucidate their individual effect on the derived adhesion force. No dependence of the derived adhesion force on the applied load has been detected, making sure that no plastic changes in the morphology of either tip and/or sample occur. Other setpoints as the residence time of the tip at the substrate, the relative humidity, the size of the tip and the retraction velocity of the tip have been varied systematically. We have found that the adhesion force depends strongly on the velocity of the z-piezo and the tip size while, at least within the 0.5–41 s time window, the residence time does not have any measurable effect on the adhesion force. The time scale of the retraction varies between 0.2 and 25 s. The increase of the adhesion force with increasing retraction speed is ascribed to the viscous force. Finally, the adhesion force increases with increasing relative humidity.