Novel Conductive and Transparent Optical Fiber Probe for Multifunctional Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Abstract

It is well known that progress in modern science is impossible without reliable tools for characterization of structural, physical, and chemical properties of materials and devices at the micro-, nano, and atomic scale levels. The structural information of materials can be obtained by the 1st generation of optical microscopy, and second generation of scanning and transmission electron microscopy. While characterization of local electronic properties became possible after the 3rd generation of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) based on the quantum mechanical tunneling between an atomically sharp metallic tip and conductive surface by G. Binning and H. Rohrer in 1981 at IBM Zurich, which earned the Nobel Prize in Physics five year later [Binning et al, 1982, 1983]. STM has become the first instrument to directly probe local geometries of various nanostructures with an atomic resolution and has triggered development of new classes of STM-related techniques and a rapid growth of a variety of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques over the last two decades, which include atomic force microscopy (AFM) based on the mechanical detection of the Van der Waals forces between the tip and the sample surface using a pliable cantilever[Binning et al, 1986, magnetic force microscopy (MFM), electrostatic force microscopy (EFM), scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM), near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) etc to provide capability to access local electrical, magnetic, chemical, mechanical, optical, and thermal properties of materials on the nanometer scale. The SPM technique has demonstrated not only imaging, but also manipulation, control and modification of the local structure and material functionality at the nano-and atomic level. The rapid development of nanoscience and nanotechnology was really started and strongly stimulated by the generation and availability of SPM techniques, and in turn constantly stimulates development of novel SPM techniques [Sergei & Alexei, 2007]. Typically, one of the advancement of STM under the stimulation of nanometer-scale science and technology is to detect and analyze not only tunneling electrons but also photons induced by tunneling