This low-temperature (LT) ultra-high vacuum (UHV) atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (SYM) system has a special microscope head, which was built in a group of Ernst Meyer, University of Basel, Switzerland. Besides the standard STM operation mode with a metal tip, the AFM operation can be conducted with a silicon cantilever, whose deflection is detected by the optical lever method. To proceed studies of on-surface chemistry at the single molecular level, the system is composed of a sputter gun, an electron bombardment sample heater, molecule/metal evaporators, a quartz microbalance, a sample cleaver, various gas dozers, and a low-temperature sample. The system has a very high throughput. The AFM/STM head was controlled with the state-of the art scanning probe microscope digital controller. Furthermore, various measurement protocols such as multi-dimensional mapping allow investigations of novel electronic, magnetic, and mechanical properties. With a liquid helium holding time of approximately 120 hours (5 days) and an active damping table, a very low-noise measurement can be conducted. Furthermore, light can be shined to the tip-sample gap in the microscope. Since the rotary pumps are installed in an acoustic protection box, we can operate the system in a comfortable/quiet laboratory.
This system employs a newly-developed rigid AFM/STM head, built by UNISOKU. To conduct local probe chemistry with a tip, the q-Plus type tuning fork is used as a force sensor of AFM. The holding time of the liquid hielium temperature is 190 hours (8 days).
This room temperature (RT) UHV AFM/STM head was also designed/built in a group of Ernst Meyer, University of Basel, Switzerland. The wide measurement bandwidth of 3 MHz allows the small amplitude operation with higher flexural modes of a silicon cantilever and the lateral force measurement with a torsional mode as well as high-resolution imaging by bimodal AFM with a combination of flexural and torsional modes.
Our group members have their own microscopes (low-temperature high-magnetic field STM, variable temperature AFM/STM, environment controlled AFM, and so on.)