If there is a temperature difference between tip and sample of a scanning tunneling microscope a thermovoltage is generated which is very sensitive to the electronic states involved in the tunneling process. This has been used, e.g., to distinguish between different metals of a heterogeneous metallic surface. To demonstrate the capability of this method it has been applied to copper islands on a Ag(111) surface. Knowing the thermopower for chemically homogeneous silver and copper surfaces of −45 and −15 μV/K, respectively, islands of copper on the silver substrate can be well identified with a lateral resolution of 1 nm.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.