Journal
PHYSICAL REVIEW B
Volume 90, Issue 8, Pages -Publisher
AMER PHYSICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.90.085421
Keywords
-
Funding
- GACR [14-16963J]
- CAS [M100101207]
- Helmholtz Gemeinschaft
Ask authors/readers for more resources
High-resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging with functionalized tips is well established, but a detailed understanding of the imaging mechanism is still missing. We present a numerical STM/AFM model, which takes into account the relaxation of the probe due to the tip-sample interaction. We demonstrate that the model is able to reproduce very well not only the experimental intra-and intermolecular contrasts, but also their evolution upon tip approach. At close distances, the simulations unveil a significant probe particle relaxation towards local minima of the interaction potential. This effect is responsible for the sharp submolecular resolution observed in AFM/STM experiments. In addition, we demonstrate that sharp apparent intermolecular bonds should not be interpreted as true hydrogen bonds, in the sense of representing areas of increased electron density. Instead, they represent the ridge between two minima of the potential energy landscape due to neighboring atoms.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available