A study was made of the effect of a scanning tunnelling microscope probe upon a specimen surface. The tip-induced transformation of a graphite superlattice into triangular dislocations was detected at misorientation angles of less than 0.5. The transformation occurred as the misorientation angle of the top layer decreased, and the superlattice spacing increased. The results also supported the suggestion that the brightest regions in superlattice images were regions of aa stacking. It was concluded that, when interpreting scanning tunnelling microscopic images of the present material, rotational and translational misalignments had to be taken into account. It appeared that both of these types of misalignment could change, due to tip/surface interaction.

P.J.Ouseph: Physical Review B, 1996, 53[15], 9610-3