Research progress of surface atomic manipulation and physical property regulation of low-dimensional structures

Abstract

Atomic manipulation technique with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been applied to control the structural and physical properties of materials at an atomic level. Recently, this technique is extended to modify the physical properties of low-dimensional materials. Different from conventional single atom lateral manipulation, the STM manipulation technique in the study of low-dimensional materials has additional manipulation modes and focus on the modification of physical properties. In this review, we introduce recent experimental progress of tuning the physical properties of lowdimensional materials through STM atomic manipulation technique. There are mainly four manipulation modes: 1) Tip-induced local electric field; 2) Controlled tip approach or retract; 3) Tip-induced non-destructive geometry manipulation; 4) Tip-induced kirigami and lithography. Through applying these manipulation modes, the STM tip effectively introduce the attracting or repulsive forces, local electronic field or magnetic field and local strain, which results in the atomically precise modification of physical properties including charge density wave, Kondo effect, inelastic tunneling effect, Majorana bound states, edge states.