Abstract
A scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) operated in air was used to investigate films deposited from solution on a chemically prepared hydrogen-passivated Si(111) surface. Our STM results show that the film deposited on the surface from solution is much rougher than the H-passivated Si(111) surface itself. Repeated scanning with the STM was shown to be capable of removing the top layers to leave stable and flat underlying layers on the surface. This indicates that the roughness of a layer deposited in air can be improved by machining with a STM tip and also confirms that the interaction between molecules themselves is weaker than that between and the H-passivated Si(111) substrate. We observe that molecules can also be swept aside by the STM tip using a high tunnelling current. The results demonstrate the feasibility of manipulating layers in air on a scale of tens of nanometres.
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