In situ CdS nanocluster formation on scanning tunneling microscopy tips for reliable single-electron tunneling at room temperature
- 8 November 1999
- journal article
- research article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Applied Physics Letters
- Vol. 75 (19) , 3023-3025
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.125221
Abstract
We report on a chemical approach to fabricating double-barrier tunneling junction (DBTJ) for room-temperature single-electron tunneling studies, by which CdSnanoclusters were directly synthesized on a scanning tunneling microscopy(STM) tip through an organic self-assembledmonolayer(SAM) and in situchemical reaction. The SAM/CdS-modified STM tip directly establishes a DBTJ structure with highly oriented pyrolytic graphite substrate with STM-based current–voltage measurement. Clear Coulomb staircases were observed at room temperature with this experimental approach, and the reproducibility was nearly 90%. When gradually reducing the tip-substrate gap by increasing the setpoint current, the staircase width showed a gradual decrease from 320 to 180 mV. These phenomena are well described by semiclassical model for correlated single-electron tunneling.Keywords
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