Accurate measurements of line-width standards, sidewalls and non-spherical nanoparticles performed at the nanoscale by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) suffer from errors due to the tip shape and size. To reduce the uncertainty, the study here presented aims to investigate a bio-plant nanostructure, namely the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), as a candidate reference tip characterizer. The TMV has a rod-shaped structure with a diameter of about 18 nm, reported earlier from x-ray fibre diffraction, thus representing a reference at the nanoscale. When imaged by AFM, the diameter of the TMV is determined as the top height of the rod from the reconstructed cross-section profile of isolated virions, deposited on a flat substrate like mica. A mean diameter of 16.5 nm, smaller than the nominal value by fibre diffraction measurements, is determined with our metrological AFM. Meanwhile, tip–sample–substrate interactions are discussed with reference to experimental data and models...

中文翻译：

---

棒状纳米结构的AFM研究中的尖端样品表征

借助原子力显微镜（AFM）在纳米级进行的线宽标准，侧壁和非球形纳米颗粒的准确测量会因尖端形状和尺寸而产生误差。为了减少不确定性，此处提出的研究旨在研究生物植物纳米结构，即烟草花叶病毒（TMV），作为候选的参考尖端特性。TMV具有直径为约18nm的棒状结构，这是较早由x射线纤维衍射报道的，因此代表了纳米级的参考。当通过AFM成像时，TMV的直径被确定为杆的顶部高度，该杆的高度是根据沉积在诸如云母之类的平坦基底上的分离的病毒体的重构截面轮廓得出的。平均直径为16.5 nm，小于通过纤维衍射测量得出的标称值，由我们的计量原子力显微镜确定。同时，参考实验数据和模型讨论了尖端-样品-底物的相互作用。