SCANNING FORCE MICROSCOPE TECHNIQUE FOR ADHESION DISTRIBUTION MEASUREMENT

A scanning force microscope technique is described to study the relation between topography and the local adhesion. The drift has been a main problem in investigating this relation since a long period is required to measure force curves over the scan area. To circumvent this problem, we propose a methodology to detect the topography and the adhesion from force curves simultaneously. Since this information is obtained from the same force curve, the distribution of the tip position corresponds precisely to that of the adhesion. The detailed relation between the tip position and the adhesion is measured on a fine lithographic grating.