Imaging adsorbates intermediate reaction

As mentioned above, the information contained in STM images pertains principally to the electronic structure of the surface, and (as for most types of microscopy) STM provides no direct insight into the chemical identities of structures. This lack of chemical specificity often makes it difficult to relate the observed structures of complex clusters, molecular adsorbates, or reaction intermediates to their chemical nature and conformation on the surface. Theoretical electronic-structure calculations are therefore commonly employed to assist in the interpretation of STM results. The theoretical calculations provide complementary information about the possible ground-state configurations of samples and can be used to generate fairly accurate simulations of STM images. 

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