November 9, 2006
Journal Article

Reproducible Tip Fabrication and Cleaning for UHV STM

Abstract

Several technical modifications related to the fabrication and ultra-high vacuum (UHV) treatment of the tips have been implemented to improve a reliability of the tip preparation for high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy. The widely used drop-off technique for the tip electrochemical etching has been further refined to enable a reproducible fabrication of the tungsten tips with a radius ?3 nm. Simple and flexible setup for the tip UHV annealing has been developed and employed. The Ar ion sputtering with subsequent annealing has been adopted for a final tip treatment. The proper tip preparation has been demonstrated by imaging an atomic structure of the rutile TiO2(110) surface.

Revised: April 7, 2011 | Published: November 9, 2006

Citation

Yu Z., C.M. Wang, Y. Du, S. Thevuthasan, and I. Lyubinetsky. 2006. Reproducible Tip Fabrication and Cleaning for UHV STM. Ultramicroscopy 108, no. 9:873-877. PNNL-SA-52875. doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2008.02.010