Two particular questions keep coming up regarding Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and we would like to address them here.

The lateral resolution of AFM is a parameter that currently has no accepted definition. The definition used in our lab is “the minimum distance between objects at which you can distinguish distinct objects.” In other words, imagine a surface with two sharp features: upon bringing the two features closer and closer together, at some point only one object is seen. That distance is the resolution limit. It is useful to define “see” as having a dip in height greater than the noise level in the image.