EPJ AP Review - Imaging, single atom contact and single atom manipulations at low temperature

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Published on 11 March 2016

The new ScientaOmicron LT-UHV scanning tunneling microscope is installed at Pico-Lab CEMES-CNRS (Toulouse) with its 4 STM scanners performing on the same surface. At 4.3 K, we report state-of-the-art STM experiments on Au(111) usually performed on the most stable single tip LT-UHV scanning tunneling microscopes.

Operating the 4 scanners independently or in parallel with an inter tip apex distance lower than 100 nm, the ΔZ stability is better than 2 pm per STM. Single Au atom manipulations were performed on Au(111) recording the pulling, sliding or pushing signal. When contacting one Au ad-atom, a jump to contact leads to a perfect linear low voltage I-V characteristics with no averaging. Two tips surface conductance measurements were also performed with one lock-in and in a floating sample mode to capture the Au(111) surface states via two STM tips dI/dV characteristics. This new instrument is exactly 4 times as precise as a single tip LT-UHV STM.