Surface diffractometry and lattice imaging of scanning tunneling microscopy images

The ability to directly image surfaces with atomic resolution has many advantages in understanding surface structures. However, a wide variety of present experimental probes, including He-atom diffraction, low-energy electron diffraction, reflectron high-energy electron diffraction, as well as x-ray diffraction, measure reciprocal surface features. Contact with such measurements is also possible with the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) by examining the two-dimensional Fourier transform of the topographic image. Such optical transforms provide, in many cases, detailed reciprocal space information not possible or obvious from the real space image and can be particularly valuable. Several recent cases are discussed and an example on Si(100) is given to illustrate this capability. © 1990, American Vacuum Society. All rights reserved.