Sharp, Peter and Jarvis, Samuel and Woolley, Richard and Sweetman, Adam and Kantorovich, Lev and Pakes, Chris and Moriarty, Philip (2012) Identifying passivated dynamic force microscopy tips on H:Si(100). Applied Physics Letters, 100 (23). ISSN 0003-6951
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
The chemical reactivity of the tip plays a central role in image formation in dynamic force microscopy, but in very many cases the state of the probe is a key experimental unknown. We show here that an H-terminated and thus chemically unreactive tip can be readily identified via characteristic imaging and spectroscopic (F(z)) signatures, including, in particular, contrast inversion, on hydrogen-passivated Si(100). We determine the tip apex termination by comparing site-specific difference force curves with the results of density functional theory, providing a clear protocol for the identification of chemically unreactive tips on silicon surfaces.