Microsc. Microanal. Microstruct. 5, 477-487 (1994)
DOI: 10.1051/mmm:0199400504-6047700

A mathematical morphology approach to image formation and image restoration in scanning tunnelling and atomic force microscopies

Noël Bonnet, Samuel Dongmo, Philippe Vautrot et Michel Troyon

Laboratoire de Microscopie Electronique et Unité INSERM 314, 21 rue Clément Ader, 51100 Reims, France

Abstract
In the nanometer resolution range, image formation in STM and AFM cannot be described by a convolution process but is essentially governed by the geometrical interaction between the specimen surface and the tip surface. This non-linear process can be simply described by a dilation of the surface profile by a three-dimensional structuring element which has the shape of the tip. Accordingly, the restoration procedure using these concepts consists in performing the erosion of the image by the same structuring element. A preliminary investigation of a possible blind restoration procedure (i.e. restoration without a very precise knowledge of the tip shape and without the need of using a known test object) is performed.

PACS
0779C - Scanning tunneling microscopes.
0779L - Atomic force microscopes.
4230V - Image forming and processing.

Key words
STM -- Atomic force microscopy -- Image processing -- Mathematical morphology -- Image forming -- Images -- Image restoration -- Scanning probe microscopy -- Metrology -- Physics -- Optics


© EDP Sciences 1994