Tip artifacts of microfabricated force sensors for atomic force microscopy

It is demonstrated that due to inevitable intrinsic imperfections in the microfabrication process of atomic force microscopy (AFM) tips, images of rough surfaces can be totally dominated by tip artifacts. These images reflect the mesoscopic tip shape as concluded from a comparison of AFM and scanning electron microscopy images of the tip and sample. These tip artifacts have been found on a scale of 20–600 nm, showing the necessity of characterizing the tip shape in order to make reliable sample-specific statements.