Noncontact lateral-force gradient measurement on Si(111)-7×7 surface with small-amplitude off-resonance atomic force microscopy

In this work, the authors report on a quantitative investigation of lateral-force gradient and lateral force between a tungsten tip and Si (111) - (7×7) surface using combined noncontact lateral-force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy. Simultaneous lateral-force gradient and scanning tunneling microscopy images of single and multiatomic step are obtained. In our measurement, tunnel current is used as feedback. The lateral-stiffness contrast has been observed to be 2.5 Nm at a single atomic step, in contrast to 13 Nm at a multiatomic step on Si (111) surface. They also carried out a series of lateral stiffness-distance spectroscopy, which show a sharp increase in tip-surface interaction stiffness as the sample is approached toward the surface.