Pre-Lab Questions to Lab 5 - Scanning Tunneling Microscope

1. Choose one of the following articles on the STM (use Web of Science to retrieve a copy)

   • S.C. Eagle and G. K Fedder, Appl. Phys. Lett. , 74, 3902 (1999).

   • B.C. Stipe, M.A. Rezaei. and W. Ho, Science, 280, 1732 (1998).

   • B. Legrand, et al, Appl. Phys. Lett., 74, 2608 (1999).

   read it, and answer the following questions.

   1. What is the main goal of the authors in this paper?

   2. What do the pictures/diagrams tell you? (you may have to look for the originals to get a good view)

   3. How is the STM utilized in this article?

   4. Do the authors achieve their goals?

   Note: These questions lead you through the best way to read a journal article e.g. read the title and abstract first, check out the introductory section, look at pictures, diagrams, and graphs next, finally read the article. Try to get the main ideas of the article on the first read through and then look for details in subsequent readings.

2. Draw one sketch for the constant current mode and one for the constant height mode for an STM tip scanning across the following topographical feature. Show (A) tip and (B) output from the STM for each mode.
   

   

3. Is it possible to examine the surface roughness of a transparent, non-conducting solid (i.e. glass, quartz) before coating it with a dielectric film or metal for use as a mirror for the Hubble Telescope? How would you do it?

   For more details on the STM try these links:

   • http://www.phys.ksu.edu/perg/papers/stm/STMPaper.htm (See Section10, p. 21-26)

   • http://phys.educ.ksu.edu/vqm/html/qtunneling.html

   • http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm (Interesting STM images)

   • http://www.nobel.se/physics/educational/microscopes/scanning/ (Interesting STM images)

   • Physics Today had a nice article on the Early History of Quantum Tunneling (Click here for the figures of that article).

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