Abstract
The most common use of the SPM, especially AFM, is the topography imaging. Therefore, the establishment of accurate imaging of surface microstructures is strongly demanded. The most significant distortion in AFM topography imaging is induced by the tip shape whenever the sample surface contains features with aspect ratios comparable to the tip apex size. The acquired AFM height image is a convolution or dilation between the tip shape and the sample topography. To restore the original profile, a numerical erosion procedure using a precise tip shape function is required. We already proposed a novel procedure for the restoration of dilated AFM images using standard nano-spheres. In this study, we compare the standard nanosphere method with a conventional blind reconstruction method in which any tip characterizers are required.
