articlePhysical Review BAug 19, 2014GREEN OA

Mechanism of high-resolution STM/AFM imaging with functionalized tips

Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics · Czech Academy of Sciences · +3 more institutions

Indexed inarxivcrossref

Abstract

High-resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging with functionalized tips is well established, but a detailed understanding of the imaging mechanism is still missing. We present a numerical STM/AFM model, which takes into account the relaxation of the probe due to the tip-sample interaction. We demonstrate that the model is able to reproduce very well not only the experimental intra- and intermolecular contrasts, but also their evolution upon tip approach. At close distances, the simulations unveil a significant probe particle relaxation towards local minima of the interaction potential. This effect is responsible for the sharp submolecular resolution observed in…

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