In situ manipulation of scanning tunneling microscope tips without tip holder

Abstract

A design for a manipulator system for manipulating bare scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tips without any tip holder is presented. The extremely stiff and rigid system consists of an ultrahigh vacuum compatible fully three-dimensionally movable gripper module driven by stepping motors and piezomotors. The tips are clamped by hardened tool steel gripper jaws, which are controlled by a stepping motor through levers. The system allows the reproducible manipulation of bare tungsten tips made of wires with diameters of 0.25 nm and having length of only up to 3 mm without damaging the tip or the STM. The tip manipulators’ advantage is that the total mass of the scanning piezotube is reduced by removing the mass of a separate tip holder. Thereby, it becomes possible to further increase the resonance frequencies of the STM.