Intuitive human interface to a scanning tunnelling microscope: observation of parity oscillations for a single atomic chain

• Sumit Tewari,
• Jacob Bakermans,
• Christian Wagner,
• Federica Galli and
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 337–348, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.33

• refer to as point contact pushing (PCP) technique. Keywords: adatom imaging; mechanical annealing; 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 mechanical annealing 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 mechanical annealing technique [18]. Eventually, when attempting to

Robust procedure for creating and characterizing the atomic structure of scanning tunneling microscope tips

• Sumit Tewari,
• Koen M. Bastiaans,
• Milan P. Allan and
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

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; mechanical annealing; 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 mechanical annealing 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 mechanical annealing 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