ABSTRACT

Roughness often yields irreproducible probe-substrate contact areas when sampling different locations on the substrate, resulting in scattered data from which representative information is difficult to obtain [5-8]. The effect of submicroscopic roughness on measured pull-off forces needs to be understood and controlled in order to adopt the A F M technique for characterization of engineered materials. A l - though the literature reports often speculate that the roughness plays an important role in irreproducibility of and scatter in reported pull-off forces obtained from an experiment, systematic experimental studies on the effect of surface roughness on A F M pull-off forces are lacking.