Lateral displacement of an AFM tip observed by in-situ TEM/AFM combined microscopy:: The effect of the friction in AFM

When the lateral displacement of an AFM tip due to friction is comparable to or larger than the scan size, for example during atomic-scale friction measurement, the interpretation of the friction image is different from the situation where the scan size is much larger than the lateral displacement of the tip and the image is a simple direct mapping of the friction value. This is because, due to the lateral displacement of the tip, the tip is not at the position where the scan indicates, as can be clearly observed by an in-situ TEM/AFM combined microscopy and atomic-scale friction analysis. This lateral displacement of the tip at the nanometer scale affects the shape of the force-distance curve. We discuss the effect of the tip lateral displacement in AFM data and its normal load dependence.