The resistance of single atomic steps in ultrathin Pb nanowires on Si(557)

Abstract

We studied the local electronic transport properties of a monolayer thick Pb wire by local potentiometry with the tip of a tunneling microscope. 50-nm-wide wires on bare Si(557) were generated by direct writing with an electron beam in an ultrathin film of SiO2 using the process of electron-beam-induced selective stimulated thermal desorption of oxygen (EBSTD) in combination with a shadow-mask technique and macroscopic TiSi2 contacts. The resistivity of this wire agrees well with expectations derived from anisotropic monolayer thick Pb films on Si(557). Although small Pb clusters nucleated during annealing and desorption of excess Pb, they had a negligible effect on the local resistive properties of the wire. Steps in the substrate of atomic height apparently do not interrupt the conducting path, but due to local scattering at step edge states increase the local resistivity by more than one order of magnitude.