Removing drift from scanning probe microscope images of periodic samples

Thermal drift is frequently encountered when imaging with scanning probe microscopes. The drift skews real space images and distorts the reciprocal space lattice vectors. A settling time of up to 2 h is generally required to achieve relatively drift free images at the high magnifications needed for molecular or atomic resolution. We demonstrate a simple method to extract accurate lattice parameters from periodic samples which compensates for drift to first order (approximately constant drift rate), dramatically shortening the necessary waiting time. The method is based on averaging the apparent reciprocal lattice vectors corresponding to consecutive scans obtained in opposite scanning directions.