Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM

We investigate the atomic structure of Sn dimer chains grown on the Si(1 0 0) surface using non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) at cryogenic temperatures. We find that similar to the native Si(1 0 0) dimer structure, the ground state of the Sn dimer structure is buckled at low temperature....

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Main Authors: Sweetman, Adam, Lekkas, Ioannis, Moriarty, Philip
Format: Article
Published: IOP Publishing 2016
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Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39766/
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author Sweetman, Adam
Lekkas, Ioannis
Moriarty, Philip
author_facet Sweetman, Adam
Lekkas, Ioannis
Moriarty, Philip
author_sort Sweetman, Adam
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description We investigate the atomic structure of Sn dimer chains grown on the Si(1 0 0) surface using non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) at cryogenic temperatures. We find that similar to the native Si(1 0 0) dimer structure, the ground state of the Sn dimer structure is buckled at low temperature. At 5 K we show that the buckling state of the Sn dimers may be controllably, and reversibly, manipulated with atomic precision by close approach of the tip, without modification of the underlying substrate buckling structure. At intermediate cryogenic temperatures we observe changes in the configuration of the dimer chains in the region where the tip-sample interaction is very weak, suggesting that the energy barrier to transit between configurations is sufficiently small to be surmounted at 78 K.
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publishDate 2016
publisher IOP Publishing
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spelling nottingham-397662020-05-04T18:23:59Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39766/ Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM Sweetman, Adam Lekkas, Ioannis Moriarty, Philip We investigate the atomic structure of Sn dimer chains grown on the Si(1 0 0) surface using non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) at cryogenic temperatures. We find that similar to the native Si(1 0 0) dimer structure, the ground state of the Sn dimer structure is buckled at low temperature. At 5 K we show that the buckling state of the Sn dimers may be controllably, and reversibly, manipulated with atomic precision by close approach of the tip, without modification of the underlying substrate buckling structure. At intermediate cryogenic temperatures we observe changes in the configuration of the dimer chains in the region where the tip-sample interaction is very weak, suggesting that the energy barrier to transit between configurations is sufficiently small to be surmounted at 78 K. IOP Publishing 2016-12-30 Article PeerReviewed Sweetman, Adam, Lekkas, Ioannis and Moriarty, Philip (2016) Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 29 (7). 074003/1-074003/12. ISSN 1361-648X STM NC-AFM atomic manipulation Si(1 0 0) semiconductor tin http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-648X/29/7/074003/meta doi:10.1088/1361-648X/29/7/074003 doi:10.1088/1361-648X/29/7/074003
spellingShingle STM
NC-AFM
atomic manipulation
Si(1 0 0)
semiconductor
tin
Sweetman, Adam
Lekkas, Ioannis
Moriarty, Philip
Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM
title Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM
title_full Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM
title_fullStr Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM
title_full_unstemmed Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM
title_short Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM
title_sort mechano-chemical manipulation of sn chains on si(1 0 0) by nc-afm
topic STM
NC-AFM
atomic manipulation
Si(1 0 0)
semiconductor
tin
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39766/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39766/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39766/