Abstract
Hot electrons injected by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip with a few volts tunneling bias scatter and modify a gold film not only at the top surface of the film, but throughout the film and at the inner or interfacial surface. The ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) measurement technique is a powerful method with which one can probe such modifications. In particular, the production of adatoms and their subsequent coagulation into atomic terraces on the inner surface of the gold is demonstrated. Quantitative measurements of the adatom production rate are in good agreement with that predicted by a model including bond breaking by the hot electrons. The stability of the created structures is shown to be related to the physical properties of the gold film.
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References
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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Hallen, H.D., Buhrman, R.A. (1993). BEEM: A Probe of Nanoscale Modification. In: Avouris, P. (eds) Atomic and Nanometer-Scale Modification of Materials: Fundamentals and Applications. NATO ASI Series, vol 239. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2024-1_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2024-1_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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