Atomic force microscope tip deconvolution using calibration arrays

Abstract

An algorithm for the deconvolution of the probe tips used with the atomic force microscope from the images of calibration grids made using very large scale integrated technology, which is useful in visualization of the tip before or after imaging for the elucidation of the condition of the stylus, is presented. This procedure described is of general applicability: it makes no assumptions about the tip geometry and requires no pretreatment of the data, such as filtering. Grids having circular depressions are shown to reproduce the geometries of circular and conical tips faithfully, but are limited when imaging those which are square pyramidal. Slight variations in the size and shapes of the depressions within a grid pattern limit the accuracy of the tip reconstruction.