Study On High-resolution Electrochemical Etching Of Metal Surface With Scanning Tunneling Microscope

The Scanning tunneling Microscope (STM) established by G. Binnig and H. Rohrer in 1980's is not only used as the analytical means which investigates the variety performances of material surface but can be a nano-fabricating tool completing the micro/nano scale etching and modifying on many types of surfaces.Based on the Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, the Method of Micro Electrochemical Etching on the metal surface has the merits that the interesting areas are selectable with high resolution and the method is suit to many kinds of fabricated samples, therefore it demonstrates very strong potential in the field of Micro/Nano fabricating. This paper presents the Two Steps Height Approaching method in High Resolution Electrochemical Etching techniques and discusses the essential principle and experimental skills of Micro/Nano Electrochemical Etching. In addition, the STM Micro/Nana Electrochemical Etching setup is designed and the identity structures on the stainless steel surface were produced. For the more, the influential factors to the etching resolution are described.The STM Electrochemical Etching Cell was designed according to the size limit from the STM column, the electric circuit and the complete device for producing STM tip electrochemically were designed, constructed and adjusted. The paper also investigated the advantages of the device. By using the tips made by the device, the high-resolution STM images were obtained. In particular the STM images was still acceptable when the sample was covered by the 0.5mol/l NaCl aqueous solution, in this working mode, the tip was thoroughly coated by some insulator except the apex of the tip.All the achievements above establish the strong foundation to the study on STM High Resolution Electrochemical etching.Being of special format, the image files formed by the EMI-1 image processor can hardly be opened by commonly used image software, however the image conversion flat developed by the paper functions the format transition from IMG file to BMP file. This flat was constructed by the Visual C++ and is practicable in Windows System.