The effect of compressive and shear forces between tip and surface during the operation of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is illustrated with examples obtained both in air and vacuum environments. We show that at typical gap resistances used in STM (≤20 GΩ) these forces can have significant effects. Compressive or repulsive forces give rise to anomalous topographic corrugations (elastic deformations) as well as to permanent damage (inelastic or plastic deformation). These forces also cause the anomalously low values obtained in measurements of the tunneling barrier height. The effects of shear forces when imaging weakly bound material will also be demonstrated.
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Salmerón et al. (1991) studied this question.