Construction of variable temperature scanning tunneling microscope


  Rajib Batabyal  ,  Noam Morali  ,  Nurit Avraham   ,  Haim Beidenkopf  
Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel

Here we present our home built ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) variable temperature scanning tunneling microscope (VT-STM). This system allows measurements in variable temperature environment ranging from 15K to room temperature using a continuous flow cryostat. The microscope is stationed inside a UHV chamber uniquely equipped with scanning electron microscope (SEM). The combination of the excellent spatial resolution of the STM and the SEM grants our new system the ability to resolve areas of orders millimeters down to angstroms. It was designed to provide extremely high accessibility to the tip-sample space paving a path to a variety of capabilities. Recently, we have successfully tested the operation of the system via scanning a cleaved HOPG substrate achieving atomically resolved surface structure and measuring the surface state of Cu(111) sample at 15K. The STM is being operated in a state-of-the-art acoustic isolation room which is supported by its own foundations, allowing low-noise in the measurements. This STM system is also designed to connect in-situ to an MBE system (Lab-10, Omicron) that has been installed in the lab.