Composition and thickness of surface layer on molybdenum tips for scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) studied by SEM/AES/(AR)XPS

Composition and Thickness of Surface Layer on Molybdenum Tips for Scanning Tunnelling

A combination of SEM, AES and angle-resolved XPS (ARXPS) has been applied to analyse the distribution of chemical compounds in the surface region of electrochemically etched molybdenum tips and to determine the contamination layer thickness. Carbon monoxide, graphite, molybdenum carbide and molybdenum oxide were found to be the main surface contaminants on molybdenum tips. Auger line profiling ...

Insulators at the ultrathin limit: electronic structure studied by scanning tunnelling microscopy and scanning tunnelling spectroscopy

Considerable progress has been made recently, using scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), scanning tunnelling spectroscopy (STS) and local density functional theory (DFT), in examining the atomic structure and electronic properties of ultrathin insulating films. This article reviews pertinent results to date with special emphasis on ultrathin MgO films on Ag(001) surfaces. Using STS, the layer-...

Theoretical study of carbon-based tips for scanning tunnelling microscopy.

Motivated by recent experiments, we present here a detailed theoretical analysis of the use of carbon-based conductive tips in scanning tunnelling microscopy. In particular, we employ ab initio methods based on density functional theory to explore a graphitic, an amorphous carbon and two diamond-like tips for imaging with a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM), and we compare them with standard...

On-surface synthesis of aligned functional nanoribbons monitored by scanning tunnelling microscopy and vibrational spectroscopy

In the blooming field of on-surface synthesis, molecular building blocks are designed to self-assemble and covalently couple directly on a well-defined surface, thus allowing the exploration of unusual reaction pathways and the production of specific compounds in mild conditions. Here we report on the creation of functionalized organic nanoribbons on the Ag(110) surface. C-H bond activation and...

Adsorption and Reactions of Water on the Copper (110) Surface Studied by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy By