Acquisition of Scanning Tunneling Microscope for Ballistic Electron Microscopy and Spectroscopy and for Student Training

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

This grant will provide partial support for the acquisition of a variable-temperature, ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) scanning tunneling microscope (STM), with modifications to facilitate ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) studies of thin film systems of current scientific importance and very substantial technological potential. This instrument will be interfaced to an existing UHV sample preparation and analysis system, and modified to enable tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy measurements in the presence of applied magnetic fields. This instrument will be used in a graduate research and training program that will quantitatively examine, with nanoscale resolution, the spin-dependent hot-electron transport properties of ferromagnetic multilayer thin films and nanostructures. A major focus will be the further development and application of a new type of magnetic microscopy, based on these transport properties, that can image magnetic structure in thin film systems with unprecedented, near atomic-scale resolution. %%% This grant will provide partial support for the acquisition of a special type of scanning microscope that can examine, with near-atomic-scale resolution, the electronic transport properties and magnetic structure of ferromagnetic multilayer thin film materials and ferromagnetic nanostructures. This instrument will enable a new and very powerful type of magnetic microscopy that will be used to image and investigate, with unprecedented resolution, the magnetic properties of such thin films and nanostructures. The instrumentation will be used in graduate student training and research concerned with the study, understanding and improvement of thin film magnetic systems. Such materials systems are currently of major scientific interest, and also have very strong potential for technologically and commercially important applications in ultra-high-density magnetic information storage systems, and as nanoscale magnetic sensors. ***