When atomic force microscopy is used to retrieve nanomechanical surface properties of
materials, unsuspected measurement and instrumentation errors may occur. In this work, some error
sources are investigated and operating and correction procedures are proposed in order to maximize
the accuracy of the measurements. Experiments were performed on sapphire, Ni, Co and Ni-30%Co
samples. A triangular pyramidal diamond tip was used to perform indentation and scratch tests, as
well as for surface visualization. It was found that nonlinearities of the z-piezo scanner, in particular
the creep of the z-piezo, and errors in the determination of the real dimensions of tested areas, are
critical parameters to be considered. However, it was observed that there is a critical load
application rate, above which the influence of the creep of the z-piezo can be neglected. Also, it was
observed that deconvolution of the tip geometry from the image of the tested area is essential to
obtain accurate values of the dimensions of indentations and scratches. The application of these
procedures enables minimizing the errors in nanomechanical property measurements using atomic
force microscopy techniques.