SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE CALIBRATION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF REAL IMAGE - DRIFT AND SLOPE ELIMINATION

Drift, slope of sample, and indeterminate sensitivity of piezoceramics are considered as the origin of the linear scanning tunneling microsc ope (STM) image distortions. A special algorithm of STM scanning and r econstruction of image of unknown atomic structures is suggested and t ested. This algorithm allows us to measure three components of the dri ft velocity and two angles, characterizing the average slope of scanni ng surface. On the one hand, using this algorithm, one can perform the STM calibration by a known surface structure (for example, the highly oriented pyrolytic graphite surface) even in the presence of a drift. This enables us to determine all the three piezoceramics constants of STM piezoscanner and the deviation of the real scanner axes X and Y f rom orthogonality. On the other hand, using such a calibrated STM and the described algorithm, it is possible to obtain the real STM image a nd make measurements for unknown surfaces with atomic resolution witho ut the distortions mentioned above. As it has been proved, the error o f interatomic distance measurements does not exceed 5% (approximately 0.1 angstrom) for any direction along the surface, even in the presenc e of a drift up to 0.4 angstrom/s and the sample slope angle up to 10- degrees.