Effect of lateral displacement of atomic force microscope tip caused by contact scanning studied by in situ transmission electron microscopy

The lateral displacement of an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip due to the displacement vertical to the sample surface is clearly observed using an in situ transmission electron microscope (TEM) with a built-in AFM. This lateral displacement of the tip affects the behavior of the force-distance curve as a hysteresis loop. The lateral displacement is also caused by the friction with a raster scan. When the lateral displacement is comparable to or larger than the size of interest or scan size, the lateral displacement affects the AFM image since the tip is not at the position where the raster scan points. This lateral displacement inevitably occurs at the contact scanning even when one does not intend to observe or cause the friction and lateral displacement.