Scan lines averaging

Figure 1.9: Multicomponent organic film surface image. Left picture - before averaging, right picture - after averaging.

Characteristic feature of scanning probe microscopy images is that they formed line by line. Thus an image has special features due to direction of scanning line formation. The thing is that if time of single scan line obtaining is small, then time between acquiring of neighbor strings are significantly larger. If, during the last process, something that can influence the scanning process happens (like loud noise for instance), neighbor scan lines could be significantly displaced in up- or downwards direction. Due to this a horizontal step not existing on the real surface will appear on the surface image. To remove this defect scan lines averaging is used. All the scan lines are put upper or lower so that in the new image the average height along each scan line is the same. This operation change a row profile of the image - by removing all the steps, and it doesn't affect the column profile of the image (see pic. 1.9).