Affiliation: | a Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Modulo C-V, E-28049 Madrid, Spain b Slovak Technical University, Department of Physics, Ilkovicova 3, SK-812 19 Bratislava, Slovak Republic c Theory of Condensed Matter, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 OHE, UK d Joint Research Center for Atom Technology and National Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, 1-1-4 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan |
Abstract: | Total-energy pseudopotential calculations are used to study the imaging process in noncontact atomic force microscopy (AFM) on Si(111), Si(100) and GaAs(110) surfaces. The chemical bonding interaction between a localised dangling bond on the atom at the apex of the tip and the dangling bonds on the adatoms in the surface is shown to dominate the forces and the force gradients and, hence, to provide atomic resolution. The lateral resolution capabilities are tested in both the Si(100) and the GaAs(110) surfaces. In the first case, the two atoms in a dimer can be resolved due to the dimer flip induced by the interaction with the tip during the scan, while in the GaAs(110), we identify the anion sublattice as the one observed in the experimental images. |