Abstract
Soft materials or soft condensed matter are being globally developed for
various technological applications for chemical, consumer goods,
pharmaceutical, agri-business, and petroleum industries. Hence, research
interest is consistently growing in experimental studies of the
dynamics, structure, and morphology of soft materials as well as soft
interfacial materials. This review focuses on atomic force microscopy
(AFM), one of the many analytical tools conventionally used for solid
matter research studies, and presently being expanded into the research
area of soft materials. When appropriately utilised, AFM provides a
suitable alternative to soft matter investigation. The main AFM modes
discussed are contact, non-contact, and tapping modes. This review also
provides discussions on the working principle of each AFM mode and its
applications in soft matter analysis in recent years. Finally, a
critical analysis and comparison of the imaging modes is carried out to
identify the advantages and disadvantages of the aforementioned modes
applied in relevance to soft matter analysis.