Automated image segmentation-assisted flattening of atomic force microscopy images

• Yuliang Wang,
• Tongda Lu,
• Xiaolai Li and
• Huimin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 975–985, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.91

• , whereby methods including thresholding [31][32], circle Hough transform [33], and clustering [30] can be applied. Recently, Wang et al. proposed a contour expansion method for feature extraction in AFM height images [3][34]. The method achieves an accurate localization and optimized boundary detection for

Robust nanobubble and nanodroplet segmentation in atomic force microscope images using the spherical Hough transform

• Yuliang Wang,
• Tongda Lu,
• Xiaolai Li,
• Shuai Ren and
• Shusheng Bi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2572–2582, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.257

• AFM scanners. In this study, a two-step approach was proposed to segment NBs and NDs in AFM images in an automated manner. The spherical Hough transform (SHT) and a boundary optimization operation were combined to achieve robust segmentation. The SHT was first used to preliminarily detect NBs and NDs

• proposed method gives an improved segmentation result compared with the thresholding and circle Hough transform method. Moreover, the proposed method shows strong robustness of segmentation in AFM images with an uneven background. Keywords: atomic force microscopy; Hough transform; morphological

• detected NBs to achieve the optimized boundary detection. Interfacial NBs and NDs are all spherical-cap-shaped objects in AFM images. Based on this, some efforts have been have been focused on shape-based image segmentation. Tan et al. applied the circle Hough transform (CHT) to implement segmentation of

Challenges in realizing ultraflat materials surfaces

• Takashi Yatsui,
• Wataru Nomura,
• Fabrice Stehlin,
• Olivier Soppera,
• Makoto Naruse and
• Motoichi Ohtsu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 875–885, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.99

• sputtering of Al2O3 (30 min sputtering time) under visible light illumination. The average width of the scratches was found to decrease from 128 to 92 nm when this method was adopted, according to a statistical analysis, which employed a Hough transform. Furthermore, the average depth decreased from 3 to 1