Output details
13 - Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Metallurgy and Materials
University of Surrey
Chemical Resolution at Ionic Crystal Surfaces Using Dynamic Atomic Force Microscopy with Metallic Tips
This work demonstrated how tips coated with chromium can be characterised in-situ and used to image an ionic surface with atomic resolution, at a tip-sample separation significantly larger than is usually the case. Extensive calculations determined that atomic-scale contrast is due to a known quantum mechanical effect where an intrinsic dipole develops at metallic nano-asperities – a finding which enables the polarity and chemical identity of image features to be determined directly from an image. This approach to imaging surfaces with coated tips leads to a general method for the chemical identification of features in atomic resolution AFM images.