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Nanoscale surface characterization of conducting and non‐conducting materials with STM and contact SFM: some problems and solutions
Author(s) -
Zhdan Peter A.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.1466
Subject(s) - characterization (materials science) , microscale chemistry , nanotechnology , surface finish , computer science , scanning tunneling microscope , surface roughness , nanometrology , materials science , nanoscopic scale , scale (ratio) , mechanical engineering , atomic force microscopy , engineering , physics , mathematics education , mathematics , composite material , quantum mechanics
Abstract Methods of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and of contact scanning force microscopy (CSFM) are widely used in many academic and industrial laboratories for nanoscale surface characterization of conducting and insulating materials. These techniques allow for very high (atomic) resolution to be achieved in different environments—vacuum, air and liquids—not to mention their ability to evaluate quantitatively selected surface features, including statistical analysis of corrugations, which permits roughness parameters to be determined on the nano‐ and microscale. Many CSFM systems are used now in industrial research laboratories, quality assurance and control departments where precise surface feature dimensioning of roughness analysis is critical for product development or process control. Each STM and CSFM user comes up against these tasks regularly during his/her daily work, therefore thorough understanding of the main principles, advantages and limitations of specific operation modes is the basis for appropriate setting of the experiments and for interpretation of acquired STM and CSFM data. Here, using a variety of experimental results obtained in our laboratory during the last few years for a number of different conducting and non‐conducting materials, some principal questions and problems related to the practical aspects of STM and CSFM are reviewed and discussed in detail: requirements for samples to be studied and their preparation for investigation, optimization of the experimental set‐up and acquisition parameters for different environments; and correct interpretation of the acquired experimental data. We hope that practical recommendations given in this paper will be useful to new users of STM and CSFM, introducing them to this field and helping in their experimental work, especially when studying ‘difficult’ samples. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.