Low-Temperature STM

This machine is based on a commercial low-temperature (LT) STM and UHV system purchased in 1998. Its preparation chamber houses a manipulator with sample heating/cooling (≈100 … 1000 K), a separate annealing stage (up to ≈1300 K), an ion source for sputtering or LEIS (low-energy ion scattering), an electron source, a hemispherical analyzer for LEIS and AES and LEED optics. The chamber currently also houses an electron beam evaporator for thermal deposition, a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), a capillary-plate gas doser and a residual gas analyzer (quadrupole mass spectrometer). The STM is in a separate UHV chamber, routinely reaching the 10^-12 mbar range, and can be operated at room temperature or cooled by liquid nitrogen (77 K) or liquid helium (reaching a temperature of 5 K). We can also heat the sample for temperatures in between.