The Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) was invented by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer and gave them the Nobel Prize in Physics 1986. STM can give us atomic resolution of a surface by applying a voltage between a very sharp tip (STM-tip) and the surface of a material that we want to examine. The STM-tip is moving over the surface and a computer is collecting the tunnel current in every single point to create a digital image. This diploma work is focused on the preparation of the STM-tip. The preparation method that is used is electrochemical etching of a tungsten wire. The sharper the STM-tip is the better resolution in the STM images we can get. With the purpose to get as sharp tip as possible and with a well-defined geometry, we prepared several tips by systematically varying the etching parameters such as voltage, current, concentration and wire length. A new method has been tested to minimize the oxidation on the surface and finally the tips were characterized with scanning electron microscope (SEM).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-30873 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Revenikiotis, Sackis (Athanasios) |
| Publisher | KTH, Materialfysik, MF |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | TRITA-ICT-EX ; 15 |
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