AFM-based study of the best imaging conditions for human hepatoma cells

What is the main reference and influencing factor for getting a more precise image at atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging system? In this paper, the quadratic regression orthogonal rotation experiment is performed to analyze the imaging factors, such as scan rate, proportional gain P and integral gain I. The fractal dimension of cell image obtained by AFM is the determining factor for image fineness. The influence of scanning parameters on the imaging will be analyzed afterwards. The optimal experimental parameters and best imaging conditions can be obtained through the above mentioned method. The results will show that the smaller the cell image fractal dimension is, the higher the reflected microscopic information and the degree of approximation to the true surface are. At the same time, the higher the fractal dimension, the bigger the possibility of image distortion caused by interference and other factors will be. Hepatoma cells SMMC-27721 are used as samples to study the optimal parameters for AFM imaging. The results will help providing more useful information to other fields of biological micro-imaging with AFM.