Principles of STM

A method was described that permitted study of the electrochemical behavior of a single molecule by using the principles of STM and the scanning electrochemical microscope." The STM was used to investigate the electro-oxidation of phenoxide to oligophenol on gold in alkaline solutions." ... 

The underlying principles of STM are essentially very simple indeed. If a sharp metal tip is placed within a distance, dT> of a few A from a conducting sample surface and a bias voltage, Uz, is applied between tip and surface, a tunnelling current. It, will be established between tip and surface due to a quantum mechanical tunnelling effect that is generated under conditions... 

Figure 9.5 Schematic illustration of working principle of STM-BI (a) and jump-to-contact-based nanostructuring and STM-BJ (b). The STM image in (b) is a ring of 48 Fe clusters created by jump-to-contact-based nanostructuring.

In Section 2, the basic principle of STM together with the most common sample preparation methods is described to familiarize the reader with the preieqnisites to carry out experiments. Sections 3 and 4 are dedicated to the... 

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