Langevin STM STS AFM:
In September 2013 the team installed the new ultrahigh vacuum low-temperature STM/STS/AFM. Located in the former laboratory of Paul Langevin at ESPCI-ParisTech, this microscope is unique in France (see the photo). The unit is equipped with a preparation chamber; the latter is devoted for in-situ sample preparation, growth and structural analysis. The microscope uses an original and nicely designed TytoTM head which combines in the same apparatus the capacities of a STM, those of an AFM and of an electron transport measurement unit; it uses the KolibriSensorTM by SPECS. The unit operates under ultrahigh vacuum P<=10-10mbar and at any temperature between 1.3K and 300K. All three kinds of experimental information can be recorded simultaneously.
The first attempts showed that the microscope routinely reaches atomic resolution in both STM and AFM modes or even in their combinations. This allows for a much deeper insight in the structural and electronic properties (see the topographic image of an individual defect on the surface of the topological insulator BiSeFe) | |
In Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy (STS) mode the unit nicely resolved spectroscopic features at the expected limit of approximately 4kT. By studying the superconducting properties of a 5 nm thick film of NbN the superconducting gap of 2mV was revealed (see the screen shot) (collab. with Dr. K. Ilin, KIT Germany) |
For any additional information please contact Prof. Dimitri Roditchev and Dr. Stéphane Pons.
To know more about STM STS:
http://www.insp.jussieu.fr/Le-microscope-a-effet-tunnel-un.html (site en français)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope (in English)