Coupling research on tiop mechanics and surface physicochemistry

Since the invention of scanning probe microscopy, it ispossible in reality to explore the ultrastructures with a resolutiondown to nanometer, molecule and atom scales, to probe mechanical, electrical,magnetical and complex chemical and physical properties, and to manipulatesingle atom and molecule. From the view point of coupling of probetechniques and surface chemical, physical and mechanical properties, theresearch field of probe's chemical and physical mechanics is summarized inthis paper, and several important methods about chemically modified tips areintroduced, which include using metal films, molecular self-assembly films,colloidal spheres and carbon nanotubes. And then several active researchfields are presented. These fieldsinclude theoretical descriptions and experimental measurements of surfaceand intermolecular forces which mainly involve Van der Waals, double layer,hydrophobic, Casimir and Single-Bond forces, and also involve theapplications of probe techniques related to mechanics of chemical forcetitration, surface chemical recognition and so on. The effect of tip andsubstrate materials on the resulting force is also discussed. Because thesecomplex interactions and physical, chemical, mechanical and biologicalproperties within atoms and molecules can be measured by a tiny tip, we firstput forward the concept of tip mechanics in this paper. Finally,it is pointed out that probe chemical and physical mechanics combined withmultiple fieldswill become an attractive interdisciplinary research field of mechanics.