Compact design of a transmission electron microscope-scanning tunneling microscope holder with three-dimensional coarse motion

A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) with a compact, three-dimensional, inertial slider design is presented. Inertial sliding of the STM tip, in three dimensions, enables coarse motion and scanning using only one piezoelectric tube. Using the same electronics both for scanning and inertial sliding, step lengths of less than 5% of the piezo range were achieved. The compact design, less than 1 cm3 in volume, ensures a low mechanical noise level and enables us to fit the STM into the sample holder of a transmission electron microscope (TEM), while maintaining atomic scale resolution in both STM and TEM imaging.

[1]  N. Agraït,et al.  Vertical inertial piezoelectric translation device for a scanning tunneling microscope , 1992 .

[2]  Håkan Olin,et al.  A compact inertial slider STM , 1997 .

[3]  K.H.J. Buschow,et al.  Encyclopedia of Materials: Science and Technology , 2004 .

[4]  D. Pohl.  Dynamic piezoelectric translation devices , 1987 .

[5]  Zhong Lin Wang,et al.  Measuring physical and mechanical properties of individual carbon nanotubes by in situ TEM , 2000 .

[6]  Joseph W. Lyding,et al.  Inertial tip translator for a scanning tunneling microscope , 1993 .

[7]  K. Herrmann,et al.  A miniaturized scanning tunneling microscope with large operation range , 1993 .

[8]  Hiroyuki Hirayama,et al.  Nanospot welding of carbon nanotubes , 2001 .

[9]  A. Volodin,et al.  Low‐temperature scanning tunneling microscope with a reliable piezoelectrical coarse approach mechanism , 1993 .

[10]  K. H. Besocke,et al.  Coarse tip distance adjustment and positioner for a scanning tunneling microscope , 1989 .

[11]  Håkan Olin,et al.  Maxwell and Sharvin conductance in gold point contacts investigated using TEM-STM , 2000 .

[12]  Oystein Fischer,et al.  A vertical piezoelectric inertial slider , 1990 .

[13]  Y. Naitoh,et al.  Simultaneous observation of scanning tunneling microscopy and reflection electron microscopy image of the Si(111)7 × 7 surface , 1999 .

[14]  J. Spence,et al.  Reflection electron microscope imaging of an operating scanning tunneling microscope , 1989 .

[15]  P. Leiderer,et al.  New design of a variable-temperature ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscope , 1998 .