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Role of Tip Material in Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

C. Julian Chen
C. Julian Chen*
Affiliation:
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
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Abstract

In this paper, we show that atomic resolution in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) originates from pz or dz2 states on the tip. Consequently, only a limited selection of tip materials can provide atomic resolution: d-band metals, for example, Pt, Ir, Pd, Rh, W, Mo; semiconductors that tend to form p-like dangling bonds, for example, Si.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 159: Symposium C – Atomic Scale Structure of Interfaces , 1989 , 289
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1990

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References

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