Ecw. Leung et al., IDENTIFICATION AND VISUALIZATION OF QUESTIONABLE REGIONS IN ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPE IMAGES, Journal of vacuum science & technology. B, Microelectronics and nanometer structures processing, measurement and phenomena, 15(2), 1997, pp. 181-185
An algorithm for the identification of areas that do not necessarily r
epresent the true sample surface in atomic force microscope images is
presented. These areas describe regions of the surface which might not
have made contact with the probe tip during a raster scan, giving dat
a which should be deemed questionable. Through the identification of t
hese questionable data points, a more accurate picture of the sample c
an be obtained. The procedure is applied to several atomic force micro
scope images for the improvement of sample images and for obtaining ti
p information. While the algorithm is applicable to all such images, i
ts sensitivity to noise reflects shortcomings in the assumption made i
n deconvolution. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Society.