Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

A 10 mK Scanning Probe Microscopy Facility

Published

Author(s)

Young J. Song, Alexander F. Otte, Steven R. Blankenship, Alan H. Band, Frank M. Hess, Young Kuk, Vladimir Shvarts, Zuyu Zhao, Joseph A. Stroscio

Abstract

We describe the design, development and performance of a scanning probe microscopy (SPM) facility operating at a base temperature of 10 mK in magnetic fields up to 15 T. The microscope is cooled by a custom designed, fully ultra-high vacuum (UHV) compatible dilution refrigerator and is capable of in-situ tip and sample exchange. Sub-picometer stability at the tip-sample junction is achieved through three independent vibration isolation stages and careful design of the dilution refrigerator. The system can be connected to, or disconnected from, a network of interconnected auxiliary UHV chambers for tip/sample preparations and analysis. These include MBE growth chambers for metal and semiconductor samples, a field ion microscope for tip characterization, and a fully independent quick access STM/AFM system. We present cooling performance, noise measurements, and high energy resolution tunneling spectroscopy results on SiC grown epitaxial graphene.
Citation
Review of Scientific Instruments
Volume
81
Issue
12

Keywords

scanning probe microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, cryogenic, dilution refrigerator

Citation

Song, Y. , Otte, A. , Blankenship, S. , Band, A. , Hess, F. , Kuk, Y. , Shvarts, V. , Zhao, Z. and Stroscio, J. (2010), A 10 mK Scanning Probe Microscopy Facility, Review of Scientific Instruments, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=906211 (Accessed March 19, 2024)
Created December 28, 2010, Updated October 12, 2021