ANALYSIS OF LATERAL FORCE EFFECTS ON THE TOPOGRAPHY IN SCANNING FORCEMICROSCOPY

The mechanism of how lateral forces can produce artifacts in topograph ical images obtained by scanning force microscopy is analyzed theoreti cally. It is shown that due to the detailed elastic behavior of the fo rce sensing cantilever, a scanning force microscope based on the light beam deflection method is particularly subject to such artifacts. The y are produced by lateral forces, arising not only from friction but a lso from the topography itself Consequently, the images are modified b y a self-distortion of the topography. The various effects contributin g to the image contrast are demonstrated experimentally by images of a tribologically heterogeneous sample. The topographical contrast is co mpared with lateral force images. A quantitative analysis shows that b oth friction-induced and topography-induced topographical artifacts ca n be described reasonably well by the theoretical formulas.