Abstract
The overall performance and correctness of the calibration of all kinds of traditional scanning probe microscopes can be assessed in a fully quantitative way by means of "crystallographic processing" of their two-dimensional images from samples with periodic features. This is because crystallographic image processing results in two residual indices that quantify by how much the symmetry in a scanning probe microscopy image deviates from the symmetries of each of the plane groups. When a likely plane group has been identified on the basis of crystallographic image processing, the symmetry elements in the scanning probe microscopy image can be enforced in order to obtain "clearer" images of periodic objects, effectively removing the less than ideal "influence" of the microscope on the imaging processes. This paper discusses the crystallographic image processing procedure for a scanning tunneling microscopy image of a mono-layer of fluorinated cobalt phthalocyanine on graphite.