Site-selective substitutional doping with atomic precision on stepped Al (111) surface by single-atom manipulation.

Chang Chen,Jinhu Zhang,Guofeng Dong,Jun Zhuang,Li Zhao,Bo-Yuan Ning,Xi-Jing Ning,Hezhu Shao

doi:10.1186/1556-276x-9-235

Chang Chen, Jinhu Zhang + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1556-276x-9-235

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Abstract

In fabrication of nano- and quantum devices, it is sometimes critical to position individual dopants at certain sites precisely to obtain the specific or enhanced functionalities. With first-principles simulations, we propose a method for substitutional doping of individual atom at a certain position on a stepped metal surface by single-atom manipulation. A selected atom at the step of Al (111) surface could be extracted vertically with an Al trimer-apex tip, and then the dopant atom will be positioned to this site. The details of the entire process including potential energy curves are given, which suggests the reliability of the proposed single-atom doping method.

Highlights

Single-atom manipulation, which was first introduced by Eigler et al and realized experimentally on Ni (111) surface with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip, provides a way to fabricate nanostructures with atomic precision [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Studies show that merely by the mechanical interaction force acting between the tip and atom, complex manipulations can still be accomplished besides the primary lateral and vertical manipulations
The work on Si (111) surface given by Sugimoto et al shows that an atom from the atomic force microscope (AFM) tip can interchange with a surface adatom in a reversible exchange procedure [9]

Summary

Introduction

Single-atom manipulation, which was first introduced by Eigler et al and realized experimentally on Ni (111) surface with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip, provides a way to fabricate nanostructures with atomic precision [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Besides the STM tip, for nonconductive surface, the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) has been applied to achieve various single-atom manipulations [8,9,10]. The work on Si (111) surface given by Sugimoto et al shows that an atom from the AFM tip can interchange with a surface adatom in a reversible exchange procedure [9]. Through this vertical manipulation, a single Si atom can be precisely positioned into or extracted from the Sn layer.

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