Atomic-scale manipulation in air with the scanning tunneling microscope

Abstract
From the practical point of view, the aim in nanofabrication is to build the smallest possible device operable in air and at room temperature. In this letter, we present a procedure in which a scanning tunneling microscope is used to remove a small number of atoms from a surface at room temperature and pressure. Its potential for high density storage of information is shown by two results: (i) two subnanometer marks, 1.2 nm apart were impressed and (ii) these marks remained unaltered after several observations.