Fabrication of silver tips for scanning tunneling microscope induced luminescence

Abstract

We describe a reliable fabrication procedure of silver tips for scanning tunneling microscope (STM) induced luminescence experiments. The tip was first etched electrochemically to yield a sharp cone shape using selected electrolyte solutions and then sputter cleaned in ultrahigh vacuum to remove surface oxidation. The tip status, in particular the tip induced plasmon mode and its emission intensity, can be further tuned through field emission and voltage pulse. The quality of silver tips thus fabricated not only offers atomically resolved STM imaging, but more importantly, also allows us to perform challenging "color" photon mapping with emission spectra taken at each pixel simultaneously during the STM scan under relatively small tunnel currents and relatively short exposure time.