Study on the delicate nanostructures formed on Au(111) by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)

✍ Scribed by Hao-Li Zhang; Hu-Lin Li; Zhong-Fan Liu

• Book ID: 104305683
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 458 KB
• Volume: 63
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-9317
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-9317(02)00553-1

✦ Synopsis

We studied nanolithography on an Au(111) surface by applying a modulated voltage pulse between a gold scanning tunneling microscope tip and the substrate. The formation thresholds as well as the shapes of the marks showed a strong dependence on the tunneling gap impedance, and such dependence suggested the coexistence of different processes during the nanolithography. Apart from mounds and pits that have been reported before, some complicated structures which could be described as 'crater like pits' and 'mound in pits' were also found. We propose that field induced emission occurred in our system when the impedance was high enough, while when the gap was small, direct contact between tip and substrate became dominant.