Single atom extraction by scanning tunneling microscope tip-crash and nanoscale surface engineering

Abstract

We report a novel atom extraction mechanism from the native substrate by means of a scanning tunneling microscope tip-crash on a Ag(111) surface at 5 K. Individual atoms are scattered on the surface when a silver coated tip is dipped into the substrate at low tunneling biases. Quantitative analyses reveal that the mechanical energy supplied by the tip-crash dominates the atom extraction process. Application of this procedure is demonstrated by constructing quantum structures using the extracted atoms on an atom-by-atom basis.

15 pages including 5 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Dislocation Emission around Nanoindentations on a (001) fcc Metal Surface Studied by STM and Atomistic Simulations
• Atomistic Studies of Defect Nucleation during Nanoindentation of Au (001)

Cited by in corpus (4)

• STM Single Atom/Molecule Manipulation and Its Application to Nanoscience and Technology
• Realizing a Four-Step Molecular Switch in Scanning Tunneling Microscope Manipulation of Single Chlorophyll-a Molecules
• Chemical and Crystallographic Characterization of the Tip Apex in Scanning Probe Microscopy
• Atom-by-atom extraction using scanning tunneling microscope tip-cluster interaction