Atomic Manipulation at Room Temperature
(Result of the month 11/2007)

The possibility of controlled local demolition and repair of the recently discovered self-organised Pt-nanowires on Ge(001) surfaces has been explored. These nanowires are composed of Pt-dimers, which are found to be rather weakly bound to the underlying substrate. Using this property, we demonstrate the possibility of carrying the constituting dimers of the Pt-nanowires from point to point with atomic precision at room temperature. Pt-dimers can be picked-up in two configurations: (i) a horizontal configuration at the tip apex, resulting in double tip images and (ii) a configuration where the Pt dimer is attached to the side of the tip apex, resulting in well-defined atomically resolved images

An array of 5 Pt nanowires on a Ge(001) surface.

(a) Nanowire 1 has a defect which consists of 4 missing Pt dimers (upper left).

(b) Four individual Pt dimers are picked up from nanowire 2 and deposited in the defect of nanowire 1. The dimers are picked up and deposited in a one-by-one fashion. Image size is 10 by 10 nm, tunneling current is 0.4 nA and -20 mV sample bias.

(a) STM image (10 x 10 nm) recorded on an array of Pt nanowires just after a single dimer pick-up event, resulting in a double tip image (configuration I).

(b) STM image (10 x 3 nm) on which a Pt dimer is dropped from the STM tip during imaging. The lower half of the image is scanned with a double tip (Pt dimer at the tip apex in configuration I), while the upper half of the image, after the dropping event, is again atomically sharp. (c) STM image (10 x 10 nm) recorded on an array of Pt nanowires. In the middle of the image a single dimer is picked up from one of the Pt chains. The resolution of the STM image remains essentially unaltered (Pt dimer at the tip apex in configuration II).

Data Courtesy of:

O. Gurlu¹, A. vanHouselt¹, W. H. A. Thijssen², J. M. van Ruitenbeek², B. Poelsema¹ and H. J. W. Zandvliet¹

¹ Solid State Physics and Physical Aspects of Nanotechnology, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

² Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author: A.vanHouselt@tnw.utwente.nl

Publication: Nanotechnology 18, 365305 (2007)

This result has been obtained with :
STM 1

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