Tip shape reconstruction of the probes for shear-force and near-field microscopes

This work is devoted to reconstructing the tip apex of the probes for shear-force and scanning near-field optical microscopes. The lateral resolution of these microscopes strongly depends on the tip radius of the corresponding probes. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) is used for estimating the tip radius as a rule. However, it is rather difficult to use TEM in the routine experiments. We present the method for determination of the tip shape using the special test samples. Two types of tips have been used: the homemade electrochemically etched W microwires and the commercial fiber probes. The estimation of the tip radius was made from the tip apex, which was extracted by our deconvolution method from the corresponding experimental images obtained on a shear-force microscope. Additional TEM experiments allowed us to compare the results obtained by these two independent methods. Correlation was investigated between the scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) lateral resolution and the reconstructed tip apex of the fiber probe used in the corresponding experiment. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.