Tunneling interferometry and measurement of thickness of ultrathin metallic Pb(111) films

Abstract

Spectra of the differential tunneling conductivity for ultrathin lead films grown on Si(111)7x7 single crystals with a thickness from 9 to 50 monolayers have been studied by low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. The presence of local maxima of the tunneling conductivity is typical for such systems. The energies of maxima of the differential conductivity are determined by the spectrum of quantum-confined states of electrons in a metallic layer and, consequently, the local thickness of the layer. It has been shown that features of the microstructure of substrates, such as steps of monatomic height, structural defects, and inclusions of other materials covered with a lead layer, can be visualized by bias-modulation scanning tunneling spectroscopy.

7 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Controlling the effective mass of quantum well states in Pb/Si(111) by interface engineering

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Quantum-well and modified image-potential states in thin Pb(111) films: an estimate for the local work function
• Observation of hidden parts of dislocation loops in thin Pb films by means of scanning tunneling spectroscopy
• Field-Emission Resonances in Thin Metallic Films: Nonexponential Decay of the Tunneling Current as a Function of the Sample-to-Tip Distance
• Oscillatory Bias Dependence of Visible Height of Monatomic Pb(111) Steps: Consequence of Quantum-Size Effect for Thin Metallic Films