Field evaporation between a gold tip and a gold surface in the scanning tunneling microscope configuration
- 24 January 1994
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 72 (4) , 574-577
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.72.574
Abstract
Mounds of gold atoms of horizontal size less than 200 Å and height <20 Å, and pits of width <50 Å and depth <10 Å can be produced on a gold surface with nearly equal probabilities by applying voltage pulses to a gold tip in the scanning tunneling microscope. We study the effects of the polarity and the height of the applied voltage pulses, and those of atmospheric environments. Our data show that field evaporation can occur both in positive and negative fields, but in ultrahigh vacuum, a tip can sustain itself only if it is in negative polarity.Keywords
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Formation of Nanometer-Scale Grooves in Silicon with a Scanning Tunneling MicroscopeScience, 1993
- Field evaporation of gold in single- and double-electrode systemsPhysical Review B, 1992
- Effects of an electric field in atomic manipulationsPhysical Review B, 1991
- Atomic and Molecular Manipulation with the Scanning Tunneling MicroscopeScience, 1991
- Field-Induced Nanometer- to Atomic-Scale Manipulation of Silicon Surfaces with the STMScience, 1991
- Manipulation of Adsorbed Atoms and Creation of New Structures on Room-Temperature Surfaces with a Scanning Tunneling MicroscopeScience, 1991
- Gold deposition from a scanning tunneling microscope tipJournal of Vacuum Science & Technology B: Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures, 1991
- Atomic emission from a gold scanning-tunneling-microscope tipPhysical Review Letters, 1990
- Positioning single atoms with a scanning tunnelling microscopeNature, 1990
- Atomic-scale surface modifications using a tunnelling microscopeNature, 1987