In micro-manipulation, the adhesion force has very important influence on behaviors of micro-objects. Here, a theoretical study on the effects of humidity on the adhesion force is presented between atomic force microscope （AFM） tips and substrate. The analysis shows that the precise tip geometry plays a critical role on humidity depen- dence of the adhesion force, which is the dominant factor in manipulating micro-objects in AFM experiments. For a blunt （paraboloid） tip, the adhesion force versus humidity curves tends to the apparent contrast （peak-to-valley corrugation） with a broad range. This paper demonstrates that the abrupt change of the adhesion force has high correla- tion with probe curvatures, which is mediated by coordinates of solid-liquid-vapor contact lines （triple point） on the probe profiles. The study provides insights for further under- standing nanoscale adhesion forces and the way to choose probe shapes in manipulating micro-objects in AFM experiments.
