Lateral forces during atomic force microscopy of graphite in air

Abstract

Highly oriented pyrolytic graphite and boronated pyrolytic graphite were imaged in air by simultaneous normal and lateral force microscopy. A number of effects occurred when scanning over steps, including an increase in attractive forces from surface contamination which could be detrimental to the imaging of soft or weakly bonded samples. Contamination may also give rise to regions of high lateral force which do not seem to be associated with any topographic features. Finally, in atomic resolution images of graphite, atomic corrugation was clearer in the lateral cantilever deflection images than in the simultaneous topography and normal cantilever deflection images, demonstrating the high sensitivity of lateral force detection to topographic features.