Chin. Phys. B, 31, 088202 (2022)
Adaptive semi-empirical model for non-contact atomic force microscopy
Xi Chen1, Junkai Tong1 and Zhixin Hu1,2
1 Center for Joint Quantum Studies and Department of Physics, Institute of Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China.
2 State Key Laboratory of Precision Measuring Technology and Instruments, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
* zhixin.hu@tju.edu.cn
Abstract
Non-contact atomic force microscope is a powerful tool to investigate the surface topography with atomic resolution. Here we propose a new approach to estimate the interaction between its tips and samples, which combines a semi-empirical model with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The generated frequency shift images are consistent with the experiment for mapping organic molecules using CuCO, Cu, CuCl, and CuOx tips. This approach achieves accuracy close to DFT calculation with much lower computational cost.
