Spatial extent of a Landauer residual-resistivity dipole in graphene quantified by scanning tunnelling potentiometry.

Electronic transport on a macroscopic scale is described by spatially averaged electric fields and scattering processes summarized in a reduced electron mobility. That this does not capture electronic transport on the atomic scale was realized by Landauer long ago. Local and non-local scattering processes need to be considered separately, the former leading to a voltage drop localized at a defect, the so-called Landauer residual-resistivity dipole. Lacking precise experimental data on the atomic scale, the spatial extent of the voltage drop remained an open question. Here, we provide an experimental study showing that the voltage drop at a monolayer-bilayer boundary in graphene clearly extends spatially up to a few nanometres into the bilayer and hence is not located strictly at the structural defect. Moreover, different scattering mechanisms can be disentangled. The matching of wave functions at either side of the junction is identified as the dominant process, a situation similar to that encountered when a molecule bridges two contacts.

Interplay between the Kondo effect and the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction.

The interplay between the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction and the Kondo effect is expected to provide the driving force for the emergence of many phenomena in strongly correlated electron materials. Two magnetic impurities in a metal are the smallest possible system containing all these ingredients and define a bottom-up approach towards a long-term understanding of concentrated/dense systems. Here we report on the experimental and theoretical investigation of iron dimers buried below a Cu(100) surface by means of low-temperature scanning tunnelling spectroscopy combined with density functional theory and numerical renormalization group calculations. The Kondo effect, in particular the width of the Abrikosov-Suhl resonance, is strongly altered or even suppressed due to magnetic coupling between the impurities. It oscillates as a function of dimer separation revealing that it is related to indirect exchange interactions mediated by the conduction electrons.

Harmonic oscillator wave functions of a self-assembled InAs quantum dot measured by scanning tunneling microscopy.

InAs quantum dots embedded in an AlAs matrix inside a double barrier resonant tunneling diode are investigated by cross-sectional scanning tunneling spectroscopy. The wave functions of the bound quantum dot states are spatially and energetically resolved. These bound states are known to be responsible for resonant tunneling phenomena in such quantum dot diodes. The wave functions reveal a textbook-like one-dimensional harmonic oscillator behavior showing up to five equidistant energy levels of 80 meV spacing. The derived effective oscillator mass of m* = 0.24m0 is 1 order of magnitude higher than the effective electron mass of bulk InAs that we attribute to the influence of the surrounding AlAs matrix. This underlines the importance of the matrix material for tailored QD devices with well-defined properties.

Differential interferometric particle tracking on the subnanometer- and submillisecond-scale.

We describe an interferometric method to measure the movement of a subwavelength probe particle relative to an immobilized reference particle with high spatial (Δx = 0.9nm) and temporal (Δt = 200µs) resolution. The differential method eliminates microscope stage drift. An upright microscope is equipped with laser dark field illumination (λ(0) = 532nm, P(0) = 30mW) and a compact modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer is mounted on the camera exit of the microscope, where the beams of scattered light of both particles are combined. The resulting interferograms provide in two channels subnanometer information about the motion of the probe particle relative to the reference particle. The interferograms are probed with two avalanche photodiodes. We applied this method to measuring the movement of kinesin along microtubules and were able to resolve the generic 8-nm steps at high ATP concentrations without external forces.

Seeing the Fermi surface in real space by nanoscale electron focusing.

The Fermi surface that characterizes the electronic band structure of crystalline solids can be difficult to image experimentally in a way that reveals local variations. We show that Fermi surfaces can be imaged in real space with a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope when subsurface point scatterers are present: in this case, cobalt impurities under a copper surface. Even the very simple Fermi surface of copper causes strongly anisotropic propagation characteristics of bulk electrons that are confined in beamlike paths on the nanoscale. The induced charge density oscillations on the nearby surface can be used for mapping buried defects and interfaces and some of their properties.