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Direct chemical discrimination at step edges and kink sites of sodium chloride by nc-AFM with an oxygen-terminated copper tip

Philipp Wiesener1, Saeed Amirjalayer2,*, and Harry Mönig1,†

  • *Contact author: saeed.amirjalayer@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
  • †Contact author: harry.moenig@uni-muenster.de
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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 033804 – Published 19 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/297b-7fpm

Abstract

Since the advent of scanning probe microscopy, elemental- and chemical discrimination on heterogeneous surfaces has been a major challenge. This is mainly due to complex contrast mechanisms, which require considerable indirect structural assumptions of tip and surface and related extensive theoretical modeling. Previously, noncontact atomic force microscopy with atomically defined copper oxide tips (CuOx-tips) showed elemental selectivity on even most complex metal-oxide surfaces [Hütner et al., Science 385, 1241, 2024]. Here we report an investigation of an ionic surface, which allows to directly identify the anionic- and cationic sub lattices even on aperiodic surface structures. In line with previous work on metal oxides [Wiesener et al., ACS Nano 18, 21948, 2024], the present results extend chemically selective imaging of CuOx-tips to a new class of heterogeneous materials.

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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 033804– Published 19 March, 2026
  • Received 9 September 2025
  • Accepted 4 March 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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