The instrument response function in air-based scanning tunneling microscopy
Abstract
The distinction between point and line resolution in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) arises because an ability to image sub-0.2 nm fringes is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for imaging individual atoms. In scanned tip microscopy, as in TEM, empirical data on instrument response should precede assertions about point resolution. In the ``slow scan limit'', time-domain noise and geometry effects decouple, and tip shape can take on the role of a 2-dimensional impulse response function. We indicate here that nuclear track pits can be used to quantitatively measure tip geometry with nanometer-scale resolution in three dimensions, that stationary tip images provide a robust measure of time-domain instabilities, and that when these data are taken before and after imaging an unknown, images with instrument response quantitatively constrained by experiment are possible. Specimen-induced tip effects also become measurable in situ.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- December 1997
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.physics/9712003
- arXiv:
- arXiv:physics/9712003
- Bibcode:
- 1997physics..12003F
- Keywords:
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- Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors;
- Physics - Optics;
- Condensed Matter - Materials Science
- E-Print:
- 4 pages (1 fig, 16 refs) RevTeX