Tip–surface interactions in noncontact atomic force microscopy on reactive surfaces

Simulating Solid-Liquid Interfaces in Atomic Force Microscopy

“…Standard modelling approaches for Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) are fairly welldeveloped, with most approaches for UHV studies applying first principles methods (also known as ab initio or quantum mechanical methods) [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], including van der Waals interactions if necessary [39][40][41], to calculate accurate force fields. The most difficult questions involve identifying the atomic structure of the tip and surface, although in the former case, breakthroughs in tip functionalization have made the task sometimes much easier [12,42,43].…”

Scanning Probe Microscopy

“…The decay length of such forces is expected to be of the order of atomic units, i.e., 0.05 nm for metallic adhesion, but around 0.2 nm for covalent bonding [137]. Imaging of compound semiconductors has been modelled [140], as has chemical bond formation between a silicon tip and a metal surface [141]. For example, metallic binding of an Al/ Al system was calculated from first principles [138], covalent binding forces of a silicon tip over a Si(111) reconstructed surface were determined, including the displacement of atoms [137], and the forces between a MgO tip and surfaces of ionic crystals have been studied in atomistic simulations [139].…”

Atomic resolution in noncontact AFM by probing cantilever frequency shifts

“…The interactions have also been modeled from van der Waals interactions (Giessibl, 1997;Sasaki & Tsukada, 1999;Xie, Sun, & Ning, 2005). The cantilever dynamics has been approached by the classical perturbation theory (Giessibl, 1997;Stich, Tobik, Perez, Terakura, & Ke, 2000), and by forced vibration equations (Nunes, Zanette, Caride, Prioli, & Rivas, 2003;Sasaki & Tsukada, 1999;Xie, 2005). The firstprincipal electronic state calculations and the DFT theory in plane-wave pseudopotential formalism have the advantage of no empirical constants and surface relaxations are embodied in the interaction simulations, which have been shown to be important for image corrugations (Ke, Uda, & Terakura, 2002).…”