Physics – Condensed Matter – Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Scientific paper
2009-10-30
Physics
Condensed Matter
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Main text: 14 pages including references and captions, 4 figures. Supplementary information: 1 pages including 2 figures
Scientific paper
With the invention of scanning probe techniques, direct imaging of single atoms and molecules became possible. Today, scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) routinely provides angstrom-scale image resolution. At the same time, however, STM images suffer from a serious drawback - the absence of chemical information. Here we demonstrate a modification of STM that resolves the chemical structure of molecular adsorbates. The key to the new STM mode is a combined force sensor and signal transducer that is formed within the tunnelling junction when a suitable gas condenses there. The method probes the repulsive branch of the surface adsorption potential and transforms the force signal into a current. Obtained images achieve the same resolution as state-of-the-art atomic force microscopy (AFM). In contrast to AFM, however, our (uncalibrated) force sensor is of nanoscale dimensions and therefore intrinsically insensitive to those long-range interactions that make atomic-resolution AFM so demanding.
Kleimann C.
Tautz F. S.
Temirov Ruslan
Wagner Clemens
Weiss Carsten
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