Decapitation of tungsten field emitter tips during sputter sharpening

Schiller, Christoph; Koomans, Arie A.; Rooy, T.L. van; Schönenberger, Christian; Elswijk, H.B.

doi:10.1016/0039-6028(95)80059-x

Cited by 23 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Our experiments confirmed that neon is preferable to argon as sputter gas [13], likely due to the high atomic mass of Ar. More than half of all tips prepared by Ne sputtering showed excellent atomic resolution on graphite.…”

Section: Article In Presssupporting

confidence: 73%

“…The second tip conditioning method studied was selfsputtering by noble gas ions [8,[10][11][12][13]. The same setup as in case of FE was utilized.…”

Section: Article In Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Clean noble gas was introduced into the vacuum chamber. A high voltage V s was applied between tip and counter electrode such that electrons were field-emitted from the tip producing the current I s and, in turn, ionize noble gas atoms (the noble gas ion current is about three orders of magnitude smaller than I s [13]). The high electric field accelerated the positively charged ions towards the tip and sputtered its surface.…”

Section: Article In Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The formation of a neck is clearly visible at a distance of a few hundred nanometers away from the apex. This neck occurs due to the higher density of impinging ions at the tip shank as compared to the very apex, and due to the higher sputter yield of the ions at the shank [13,14]. As sputtering proceeds, the neck deepens until decapitation which manifests itself in a sudden drop of V s [12].…”

Section: Article In Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tip preparation for usage in an ultra-low temperature UHV scanning tunneling microscope

Wirth¹,

Rams²,

Dolocan

et al. 2007

Science and Technology of Advanced Materials

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This work deals with the preparation and characterization of tungsten tips for the use in UHV low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM and STS, respectively). These specific environments require in situ facilities for tip conditioning, for further sharpening of the tips, as well as for reliable tip characterization. The implemented conditioning methods include direct resistive annealing, annealing by electron bombardment, and self-sputtering with noble gas ions. Moreover, results from in situ tip characterization by field emission and STM experiments were compared to ex situ scanning electron microscopy. Using the so-prepared tips, high resolution STM images and tunneling spectra were obtained in a temperature range from ambient down to 350 mK, partially with applied magnetic field, on a variety of materials. r

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Section: Article In Presssupporting

confidence: 73%

“…The second tip conditioning method studied was selfsputtering by noble gas ions [8,[10][11][12][13]. The same setup as in case of FE was utilized.…”

Section: Article In Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Article In Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Article In Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Tip preparation for usage in an ultra-low temperature UHV scanning tunneling microscope

Wirth¹,

Rams²,

Dolocan

et al. 2007

Science and Technology of Advanced Materials

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“…Owing to these and other technological applications, numerous methods to eff ect the sharpening of metallic probes have been developed, several of which involve ion beam processing: sputter erosion sharpening with on-axis inert gas ion beams (conventional sputter erosion (CSE)), self-sputtering with Schiller decapitation 10 and focused ion beam (FIB) sharpening 11 . CSE produces probe radii from 4 nm (ref.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Field-directed sputter sharpening for tailored probe materials and atomic-scale lithography

et al. 2012

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Fabrication of ultrasharp probes is of interest for many applications, including scanning probe microscopy and electron-stimulated patterning of surfaces. These techniques require reproducible ultrasharp metallic tips, yet the effi cient and reproducible fabrication of these consumable items has remained an elusive goal. Here we describe a novel biased-probe fi elddirected sputter sharpening technique applicable to conductive materials, which produces nanometer and sub-nanometer sharp W, Pt-Ir and W-HfB 2 tips able to perform atomic-scale lithography on Si. Compared with traditional probes fabricated by etching or conventional sputter erosion, fi eld-directed sputter sharpened probes have smaller radii and produce lithographic patterns 18 -26 % sharper with atomic-scale lithographic fi delity.

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