Beilstein J. Nanotechnol.2019,10, 337–348, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.33
refer to as point contact pushing (PCP) technique.
Keywords: adatom imaging; mechanicalannealing; scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM); STM tip; tip apex; Introduction
It is of fundamental interest both for chemists and physicists to study the electronic transport through single atoms and molecules
preparing a crystalline tip apex up to the second atomic layer from the apex atom. In this method mechanicalannealing cycles are used to achieve a more regular atomic packing. Furthermore, by imaging an adatom placed above a smooth Au surface the structure of the tip apex is imaged, and a smooth and
on gold atomic chains obtained using the MCBJ technique, we have well-defined electrode shapes. One of the electrodes is an atomically flat Au(111) FCC facet and the other electrode is an atomically sharp tip apex prepared using the mechanicalannealing technique [18].
Eventually, when attempting to
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Figure 1:
Schematic of the experimental setup. The components of the setup include a cryogenic UHV STM, a 3D ...
Beilstein J. Nanotechnol.2017,8, 2389–2395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.238
to the second atomic layer. We demonstrate a controlled evolution of such tips starting from undefined tip shapes.
Keywords: adatom imaging; mechanicalannealing; scanning tunneling microscopy (STM); STM tip; tip apex; Introduction
After the advent of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in 1981
repeatable cycles, which is interpreted as evidence for a crystalline tip structure. This work on mechanicalannealing was inspired by earlier break junction and STM experiments, supported by molecular dynamics simulations [25][27][28]. A first application of this approach for a Au STM tip over a graphene
surface [29] was made by first locally depositing Au on the graphene surface from the tip using a high electric field pulse, followed by mechanicalannealing similar to [25] over that Au deposit. The authors confirmed that the method improved the topographic contrast of the surface and the quality of the
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Figure 1:
Six consecutive conductance traces of contact breaking showing (a) an initially non-repetitive stru...