Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 93: Scanning Probe Techniques: Method Development
O 93.7: Talk
Thursday, March 21, 2024, 16:30–16:45, MA 043
Van der Waals scanning probe tips — •Abhisek Kole1,2,4, Tobias Wichmann1,2,4, Keda Jin1,2,3, Jia Grace Lu5, Xiaosheng Yang6,7, F. Stefan Tautz1,2,4, Markus Ternes1,2,3, Jose Martinez Castro1,2,3, and Felix Lüpke1,2 — 1Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany — 2Jülich Aachen Research Alliance, Fundamentals of Future Information Technology, 52425 Jülich, Germany — 3Institut fur Experimentalphysik II B, RWTH Aachen, 52074 Aachen, Germany — 4Institut fur Experimentalphysik IV A, RWTH Aachen, 52074 Aachen, Germany — 5Department of Physics/Electrophysics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA — 6Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China — 7Optics Valley Laboratory, Hubei 430074, China
Van der Waals materials are known for their intriguing emergent 2D physics, such as correlated phenomena and topological effects. Here, we report the methodical fabrication of van der Waals scanning tunnelling tips from exfoliated graphite flakes with a graphene-like edge as a scanning tunnelling tip. The principle of STM is based on the quantum mechanical tunneling between the tip and sample, revealing the convoluted underlying electronic structure. We characterize the tip by performing atomically resolved STM of an Ag(111) surface. The tip-sample differential conductance dI/dV reveals direct evidence of tunnelling through a graphene nanoribbon-like zigzag edge state, which we support by tight binding calculations.
Keywords: Van der Waals materials; Scanning tunneling microscopy; Topology; 2D material