Titanium Carbide Single-Crystal Tips for High-Resolution Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM)

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Abstract
Titanium carbide (TiC) single-crystal tips that were sharpened by cleavage have been used to observe the atomic images of the cleaved surfaces of graphite in air. The obtained atomic images were essentially the same as those observed by the commonly used tungsten and platinum tips. However, the TiC single-crystal tips were much better than the tungsten and platinum tips in that atomic images of high resolution could almost always be observed. It was also found that the TiC single-crystal tips were resistant to the intentional and accidental touching to samples. This indicates that the TiC single-crystal tips are suitable for mechanical microlithography of materials in the nanometer scale.

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