The influence of a Si cantilever tip with/without tungsten coating on noncontact atomic force microscopy imaging of a Ge(001) surface.
A sharp probe tip with atomic scale stability is essential and desirable for noncontact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) studies at the atomic scale. We observed a Ge(001) surface using both a Si cantilever and a tungsten coated Si cantilever at room temperature in order to investigate the influence of the tip apex structure on the NC-AFM images. By using the Si cantilever, we first obtained four types of image at the atomic scale which can be explained assuming a dimer structure on the tip apex. On the other hand, the home-made tungsten coated tip, which has atomic scale stability and high electric conductivity, imaged the so-called ordered c(4 x 2) structure without any artifacts. The tungsten coated cantilever was found to have significantly higher performance for NC-AFM studies at the atomic scale than the Si cantilever.
Naitoh
Yoshitaka
Y
Department of Applied Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Yamada-oka 2-1, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. naitoh@ap.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp
Kinoshita
Yukinori
Y
Jun Li
Yan
Y
Kageshima
Masami
M
Sugawara
Yasuhiro
Y