CONSEQUENCES OF THE STICK-SLIP MOVEMENT FOR THE SCANNING FORCE MICROSCOPY IMAGING OF GRAPHITE

An experimental and theoretical study on the nature of the movement of a scanned tip on a graphite (0001) surface is presented. By compariso n between theory and experiment, it is demonstrated that the lateral f orces occurring during scanning are strongly affected by the so-called ''stick-slip'' movement of the tip. The experimentally observed force maps are identified to represent ''hollow-site resolution'' instead o f ''atomic resolution.'' In particular, it will be shown that the ofte n reported ''resolution of every other atom'' can be explained straigh tforwardly by the two-dimensional stick-slip movement of the tip.