Subatomic Imaging of Si (001) Surface by Molecular Dynamic Simulation

Abstract

In this study we predict the frequency modulation atomic force microscopy (FM-AFM) subatomic frequency shift images of a Si (001) surface using empirical potential molecular dynamic methods. We model carbon single-wall nanotube caped tip and Si (001) surface to investigate the tip-surface interaction. The simulation shows that the FM-AFM imaging force mainly comes from C-Si/C-C chemical covalent bonding forces; the long range nonbond van der Waals forces are slight and can be ignored