Two types of nanoridge domains oriented with each other with an angle ranging between 109 and 124 were measured by scanning tunneling microscopy on the a-W film sputter deposited on an oxidized Si surface. Each domain contains nanoridges with a period of 7.5 1.0 nm. No such domains were observed on the b-W film surface. We argued that due to the anisotropy of the W(1 1 0) surface, the impinging...

The GaAs(0 0 1) surface is observed to evolve from being perfectly flat to a surface half covered with one-monolayer high spontaneously formed GaAs islands. The dynamics of this process are monitored with atomic-scale resolution using scanning tunneling microscopy. Surprisingly, pit formation dominates the early stages of island formation. Insight into the nucleation process is reported. 2003 E...

Two-dimensional triangular-lattice antiferromagnets are predicted under some conditions to exhibit a quantum spin liquid ground state whose low-energy behavior is described by spinon Fermi surface. Directly imaging the resulting spinons, however, difficult due their fractional, chargeless nature. Here we use scanning tunneling spectroscopy image density modulations arising from surface instabil...

Using scanning tunneling microscopy on Cu/Ru~0001! thin films we have located the depth at which the cores of misfit dislocations lie below the film surface. The procedure is based on matching areas with unknown structure to areas with a known stacking sequence in the same film. Our results show that dislocations occur not only at the Cu/Ru interface, but also at various levels within the Cu fi...

Abstract Tracking electron motion in molecules is the key to understanding and controlling chemical transformations. Contemporary techniques attosecond science are able generate trace consequences of this real time, but not space. Scanning tunnelling microscopy, on other hand, can locally probe valence density molecules, cannot alone provide dynamical information at ultrafast timescale. Here we...