Related topics: electrons · atoms · molecules

World's smallest electric motor made from a single molecule

Chemists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences have developed the world's first single molecule electric motor, a development that may potentially create a new class of devices that could be used in applications ...

Single-atom transistor is 'perfect'

In a remarkable feat of micro-engineering, UNSW physicists have created a working transistor consisting of a single atom placed precisely in a silicon crystal.

World's smallest MRI performed on single atoms

Researchers at the Center for Quantum Nanoscience (QNS) within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) at Ewha Womans University have made a major scientific breakthrough by performing the world's smallest magnetic resonance ...

IBM Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Moving Atoms (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- On this day in 1989, IBM Fellow Don Eigler became the first person in history to move and control an individual atom. Shortly thereafter, on November 11 of that year, Eigler and his team used a custom-built ...

How to split a water molecule

(PhysOrg.com) -- A research team at RIKEN, Japan’s flagship research organization has succeeded for the first time in selectively controlling for reaction products in the dissociation of a single water molecule on an ultrathin ...

The world's smallest magnetic data storage unit

Scientists from IBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) have built the world's smallest magnetic data storage unit. It uses just twelve atoms per bit, the basic unit of information, and squeezes a ...

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Scanning tunneling microscope

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is a powerful technique for viewing surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer (at IBM Zürich), the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. STM probes the density of states of a material using tunneling current. For STM, good resolution is considered to be 0.1 nm lateral resolution and 0.01 nm depth resolution. The STM can be used not only in ultra high vacuum but also in air and various other liquid or gas ambients, and at temperatures ranging from near zero kelvin to a few hundred degrees Celsius.

The STM is based on the concept of quantum tunnelling. When a conducting tip is brought very near to a metallic or semiconducting surface, a bias between the two can allow electrons to tunnel through the vacuum between them. For low voltages, this tunneling current is a function of the local density of states (LDOS) at the Fermi level, Ef, of the sample. Variations in current as the probe passes over the surface are translated into an image. STM can be a challenging technique, as it requires extremely clean surfaces and sharp tips.

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