English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Superconducting (SC) tips for scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) can enhancea wide range of surface science studies because they offer exquisite energyresolution, allow the study of Josephson tunneling, or provide spatial contrastbased on the local interaction of the SC tip with the sample. The appeal of aSC tip is also practical. An SC gap can be used to characterize and optimizethe noise of a low-temperature apparatus. Unlike typical samples, SC tips canbe made with less ordered materials, such as from SC polycrystalline wires orby coating a normal metal tip with a superconductor. Those recipes eitherrequire additional laboratory infrastructure or are carried out in ambientconditions, leaving an oxidized tip behind. Here, we revisit the vacuumcleaving of an Nb wire to prepare fully gapped tips in an accessible one-stepprocedure. To show their utility, we measure the SC gap of Nb on Au(111) todetermine the base temperature of our microscope and to optimize its RFfiltering. The deliberate coating of the Nb tip with Au fully suppresses the SCgap and we show how sputtering with Ar$^{+}$ ions can be used to graduallyrecover the gap, promising tunability for tailored SC gaps sizes.

Vacuum cleaving of superconducting niobium tips to optimize noise filtering and with adjustable gap size for scanning tunneling microscopy