Paper on STM

Msc Programme of Dept of EEE

Student Name: Rakib Ahsan Islam
Student ID: 20220255008
Ahsanullah University of Science
&Technology
Course No:EEE6331
 A simple STM experiment
Rakib Ahsan Islam
Department of EEE
Ahsanullah University of Science&Technology
Dhaka, Bangladesh
rakib257a@gmail.com
Abstract—this paper illustrates a simple STM microscope
and investigation of thin surface is observed and the usefulness
of STM is also observed. A highly oriented graphite surface is
observed using a new STM called EM-STM.
Keywords—STM, Tunneling, Graphite, Voltage, Piezo
Translator, EM-STM.
I. INTRODUCTION
Since its development in 1983 by Binnig and Rohrer
[3,4], the scanning tunneling microscope(STM) has become
a powerful tool for surface investigations. A great number of
instrumental designs have been reported, most of which use a
piezoelectric tripod for scanning the tip and a piezoelectric
walker like the "louse" for coarse positioning of the sample.
We have realized our own idea of a STM which differs in
some features from the known instruments: A compact
construction of the tunneling unit allows one to work without
a special built-in system for vibration screening. The
instrument can be fixed to an UHV chamber and
manipulations like coarse positioning of the tip, sample
motion, etc. can be carried out from outside the chamber. In
the present paper we describe the most important features of
the instrument and give some examples of surface images
demonstrating the capability to resolve atomic steps.[1]
II. INSTRUMNENTAL DESIGN
The operating principle of the STM is illustrated in the
schematic view of fig. la; a photograph of the entire unit is
shown in fig. 2. Tip, sample and piezo translator are housed
in a rigid stainless steel frame of 5 cm × 5 cm which is
directly connected to an UHV flange. For coarse positioning
of the tip, a double lever system reducing the motion of a
micrometer screw 1:40 presses a sheet steel on which the
piezo translator is fixed. The maximum displacement of the
lever system is 100μ, adjustable with 280 Å/deg. With this
device the tip can be moved close to the sample
using a rotary feed through from outside the vacuum
chamber until the electronic feedback loop starts to work,
thus avoiding a "crash" of the tip. For the selection of
particular spots on the sample a specimen manipulator was
developed following the principles of electron microscope
manipulators: To avoid a distortion of the image by
mechanical or thermal drift of the manipulator, very high
stability of the fixed position is important. With micrometer
screws reduced by levers
a sample displacement of _+1 mm in x and y direction is
achieved, adjustable with roughly 0.13gm per degree motion
of rotary feed through. The piezo-electric drive elements for
the x-y-z
translator consist of commercial piezo electric rings for
ultrasonic generators. The rings (3 mm thick and 15 mm in
diameter) are cut from a special type of hard piezo ceramic
material (PXE 42,Valvo). In comparison with other materials
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PXE42 shows a smaller hysteresis - which causes a
displacement of feature in the image when the scanning
direction is reversed - and no after-effects. The design of the
translator is symmetric, as represented in fig. lb. For each
scanning direction two piezoelectric rings are used, one
expanding and the other contracting if a voltage is applied.
Thus thermal drifts of the tip resulting in an image distortion
are avoided to first order. The remaining thermal drift is
measured to be less than 0.03 Å/s in each direction. The
maximum scanning range is 3000 × 3000 Å2 applying a
voltage of 1000 V to the rings. The tunneling tips are cut
from tungsten wire0.25 mm in diameter etched in 4 n NaOH
to a radius less than 0.1 μm [4]. In order to improve the
resolution some further treatment of the tip is frequently
necessary: An oscillating voltage of 5kHz is applied to the z
piezo in addition to the feedback voltage until an abrupt
change in the feedback voltage indicates a change in the tip
structure [5].No special system for vibration screening is
used inside the vacuum chamber. The suppression of
external vibrations (building, traffic, etc.) is achieved using
three pneumatic air-insulators showing resonant frequencies
of roughly 1 Hz. Furthermore, the whole assembly is
installed on a particular base separated from the base of the
laboratory. With this arrangement the vertical resolution is
better than 0.2 A. The tip-to-sample spacing is controlled by
a feedback system which keeps the tunneling current
constant. Up to now an x-y recorder was employed for the
image registration which requires scanning times of 5 s per
line or longer in order to avoid a limitation of the lateral
resolution by the recorder response. A decrease of the
scanning time smoothes the image and reduces the
resolution, as illustrated in fig. 3. If faster methods of image
registration are used - such as a storage oscilloscope, etc. -
The scanning time is limited by the cut-off frequency of the
feedback loop. Even in this case a relation can be found
between the scanning time and the resolution; the proper
scanning rate can be determined if the cut-off frequency of
the electronic circuit is known.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Platinum: The molten end of a Pt wire solidifies to a
single crystal globule which shows some characteristic
facets. On the border of these facets atomic steps are
detectable, e.g. using reflection electron microscopy [6].
These steps are suitable features for testing the STM: an
example is shown in fig. 5. The measured step heights differ
between1 atomic layer (2.3Å,) and 4 atomic layers.
Furthermore the image shows microstructures along the steps
some of which could be interpreted to be dislocations.
Silver on silicon: A 500-A-thick single-crystal silver film
was evaporated on a Si wafer. The STM image covers a
range of 3200-2300 Å, 2 showing a corrugated surface with
typical grain boundaries. The grains are roughly 1000 A in
diameter and the corrugation amplitude is 50-100Å. The
measurement was taken in air.
 Fig. 1. (a) Schematic view of the STM. (b) Symmetric x-y-z piezo-translator with two piezoelectric rings for each scanning
direction.
Fig. 2. Photograph of the complete STM unit.
Graphite: Our result on a sample of highly oriented pyro
lytic graphite (Grade ZYD, Union Carbide) is shown in fig.
7. Flat regions are alternating with atomic steps. Step
heights between 6and 7 A, are measured indicating two
atomic layers of graphite (6.7Å) [7]. In the flat regions the
Hexagonal structure of the graphite unit cell could not be
resolved, indicating that the lateral resolution in these
experiments was lower than 3.5 Å.
IV. RECENT TECHNOLOGY
STM images of the HOPG(highly-oriented pyro lytic
graphite) surface before, during, and after perturbing the
surface using a new technique we call electrostatic-
manipulation STM (EM-STM).[8] With this technique large-
scale precision-controlled vertical movement of the HOPG
surface is possible. Atomic-scale STM images reveal a
continuous transition from
graphite.[8]
Fig. 3. Pt STM traces showing the relation between scanning
time and resolution for image registration with an x-y
recorder.(Each line is recorded twice to show the reproducibility.)A
similar relation can be found for faster methods of image
registration.
The effect of EM-STM on HOPG is demonstrated in Fig.
4. First ,a diagram of how this technique might appear on an
atomic scale is shown in Fig. 1(a). It illustrates the top layer
of HOPG being locally lifted by the electrostatic attraction to
the STM tip. A series of 150 nm · 150 nm STM images of
HOPG, all at the same location, were taken before, during,
and after EM STM measurements, and the images are
displayed in sequential order in Fig. 4(b–f). The slow scan
direction proceeded
 from bottom to top, and the images are colored such that due to: (1)high scanning rate and limitation of the resolution
the highest points are white (0.2 nm high) while the lowest by the x-y recorder; (2) instabilities of the tip or the sample
points are black. A white stripe approximately 20 nm wide is (electrical or mechanical noise); (3)radius of the tunneling
prominent in Fig. 4(b), indicating that a raised ribbon-like tip. Since a proper scanning rate was adjusted and the noise
structure exists on the HOPG surface. This image was taken level is lower than 0.2 Å, we suppose that the structure of the
prior to any EM-STM measurements. A darker stripe, or used tip was not sufficiently fine to achieve atomic
trench, can also be seen approximately 50 nm to the right of resolution. Further treatment will be necessary to get single
the white stripe, with a protrusion in the trench serving as a atom tips. A recent technology is also discussed to
reference point when comparing the images. An EM-STM demonstrate the new powerful techniques of STM. This
measurement was taken during the next scan, which is shows the difference in technological advancement.
presented in Fig. 4(c). During the EM-STM measurement,
the STM tip was first positioned on the white stripe, and then
the tip bias was increased from 0.1 to 3.0 V at a constant
tunneling current of 1.00 nA. It can be seen that, at the
location where the EM-STM measurements took place, the
white stripe was displaced to the right, toward the protrusion,
but eventually the upper portion went back to the left, under
the influence of the scanning STM tip. In the next image,
shown in Fig. 4(d), the lower portion of the white stripe has
remained displaced and become somewhat darker (it is likely
a fold in the ribbon), indicating that a permanent change has
been introduced to the surface. To demonstrate this ability
again, a second EM-STM measurement was taken during the
subsequent scan, shown in Fig. 4(e), resulting in a dis-
placement of the upper portion of the white stripe, this time
away from the trench. The final scan, taken immediately
afterward and shown in Fig. 4(f), shows a larger portion of Fig. 5. Atomic steps on a Pt single crystal globule observed
the white stripe is farther away from the trench, resulting in a with the STM. The top line is recorded twice to indicate the atomic
structure clearly distinct from that in Fig. 4(b). These images steps. Measured step heights are between 1 atomic scale(2.3 Å) and
help illustrate the size of the regions that can be impacted by 4 atomic layers. [he scanned area is 1000 x 750 Å the voltage 0.1 v
an EM-STM measurement on graphite.[8] and the current 0.5 nA and the line-scan frequency 0.1 Hz at a
pressure of 2 x 108 mbar. The acquisition time for the whole image
is 10 min

Fig. 4 – (a) A schematic of the STM tip lifting the surface layer
Fig. 6. 500-Å,-thick Ag-film on Si. The image is taken in air.
of a graphite sample. (b–f) A chronological series of150 nm · 150
Scanned area is 3200 x 2300 Å, 2, voltage 0.1 V, current 1 nA, line-
nm filled-state STM images of one location on the graphite surface
scan frequency 0.2 Hz. The grain structure is clearly visible.
taken with a bias voltage of 0.1 V and a set point current of 1.0 nA
EM-STM measurements (not shown) were performed on the white
stripe during the acquisition of the images shown in (c) and (e)

V. CONCLUSIONS
A new STM construction has been taken into operation.
The most important features of the microscope are: high
stability due to a rigid, temperature-compensated design,
fixed connection with the vibration-isolated UHV chamber,
sample displacement and coarse motion of the tip by rotary
feed through, operation in air and under UHV conditions,
high vertical resolution. The lateral resolution was not
sufficient to image individual atoms of graphite. This can be Fig. 7. Image of highly oriented pyro lytic graphite by STM.
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