AFM image reconstruction research based on drift correlation model

The system drift causes the AFM tip to stochastically displacement in the sample surface of substrate when atomic force microscope imaging. This will give a notable effect on AFM image procedure, and results in distortion of scanning images. For this distortion, the paper establishes image compensation model, through associating the reference image and deformation image of the same sample region with 0 degrees and 90 degrees scanning angle respectively, to estimate horizontal and vertical displacement between the two images for reconstructing the reference image. The algorithm is verified by using simulation, and then is applied to AFM images. After image correction, nanoparticles aspect ratio is closer to 1, and relative distance changes between the nanoparticles from the system drift also meet the drift measurement results. These experimental results illustrate that the proposed method can effectively reduce the influence of system drift on AFM images and improve AFM image quality.