Maintenance of Ultra-High Vacuum Instruments

Rolling Contact Fatigue in Ultra High Vacuum

Selective Hydrogenation of Acetylene over Palladium in Ultra High Vacuum

Under ultra-high-vacuum conditions, precoverage of a palladium(ll1) surface with hydrogen does not affect either the kinetics or the extent of acetylene uptake at 175 K. The subsequent reactive behavior of the system is however radically altered. Benzene formation is strongly suppressed, the transformation of adsorbed acetylene to another species (@-phase) is enhanced, and the yield of ethylene...

Direct-write polymer nanolithography in ultra-high vacuum

Polymer nanostructures were directly written onto substrates in ultra-high vacuum. The polymer ink was coated onto atomic force microscope (AFM) probes that could be heated to control the ink viscosity. Then, the ink-coated probes were placed into an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) AFM and used to write polymer nanostructures on surfaces, including surfaces cleaned in UHV. Controlling the writing speed...

Vacuum fluctuation forces between ultra-thin films

We have investigated the role of the quantum size effects in the evaluation of the force caused by electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations between ultra-thin films, using the dielectric tensor derived from the particle in a box model. Comparison with the results obtained by adopting a continuum dielectric model shows that, for film thicknesses of 1÷10 nm, the electron confinement causes changes in ...

Influence of adsorbates on UV-pulsed laser melting of Si in ultra-high vacuum

The dynamics of laser melting of atomically clean Si is investigated in ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) by transient reflectivity with single-pulse sensitivity in the presence of monitored amounts of chlorine, oxygen or propene. Adsorption of one monolayer (1 ML) leads to measurable variations of the melting dynamics, which are strongly adsorbate-dependent. The variations differ qualitatively and quant...