An ultrahigh vacuum high speed scanning tunneling microscope

We have developed an ultrahigh vacuum high speed scanning tunneling microscope (STM) which is based on a prototype STM that operates in air. The prototype operates with a tip scan speed up to 10⁵ nm/s. At this high tip speed, we have made real time videos of nickel and gold at rates up to 15 Hz. The ultrahigh vacuum version operates at speeds up to 8000 nm/s with atomic resolution on the Si(111) surface and incorporates sample transfer and sample heating.