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Lateral resolution of the scanning tunnelling microscope
Author(s) -
Laloyaux Th.,
Lucas A. A.,
Vigneron J.P.,
Lambin Ph.,
Morawitz H.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of microscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.569
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2818
pISSN - 0022-2720
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2818.1988.tb01361.x
Subject(s) - planar , microscope , quantum tunnelling , radius , optics , surface (topology) , scanning tunneling microscope , scanning probe microscopy , resolution (logic) , materials science , geometry , physics , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , mathematics , computer science , computer graphics (images) , computer security , artificial intelligence
SUMMARY A theoretical study of the current distribution in a model which extracts the prominent characteristics of a tip‐surface geometry in a scanning tunnelling microscope is presented. The sample is a Sommerfeld metal with a planar surface while the tip, also made of a Sommerfeld metal with a planar surface, presents a hemispherical protrusion. Schrödinger's equation is solved by using a form of the finite element method suitable to treat the three‐dimensional tunnelling problem. We have derived the current distribution for several values of the protrusion radius and for various gaps between the electrodes. From these results, we investigate the ideal resolution of the scanning tunnelling microscope for realistic values of these geometrical parameters. Though applied to a rather simple model, at this stage, our method appears to be a suitable scheme for further, more refined computations, accounting for the detailed atomic structure of the electrodes.