Control of AFM tip wear

Atomic force microscopes can provide extremely high resolution imaging of surfaces; nevertheless due to non-ideal shape and size of the probe tip, distortions are present. The amplitude of these distortions is not constant: in fact, tip shape evolves with time, since physical effects and dynamic interactions produce wear. The possibility of foreseeing tip wear rate is of great help whenever quantitative analyses are needed, reducing the time needed for tip-investigation and allowing for a proper deconvolution operation. In this paper, a new strategy for monitoring and modelling tip wear in contact mode AFM is presented. Evolution of tip shape was observed by reverse imaging of a scanned nanostructured topography, periodically repeated throughout tip lifetime. An algorithm for tip deconvolution is presented in the paper.