Chemical and crystallographic characterization of the tip apex in scanning probe microscopy

The apex atom of a W scanning probe tip reveals a nonspherical charge distribution as probed by a CO molecule bonded to a Cu(111) surface [Welker et al., Science 336, 444 (2012). Three high-symmetry images were observed and related to three low-index crystallographic directions of the W bcc crystal. Open questions remained, such as the detectability of a contamination of W tips by sample material (here Cu), and the applicability of the method to distinguish other atomic species. In this work, we investigate bulk Cu and Fe tips. In both cases, we can associate our data with the fcc (Cu) and bcc (Fe) crystal structures using a simple electrostatic model that is based on the partial filling of d orbitals.