Scanning tunneling microscopy assisted oxide surface etching

Abstract
A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is used to image the surface of and to etch defects on a quasi-two-dimensional conducting oxide, Na0.9Mo6O17. The surface defects (pits) are produced by briefly increasing the bias voltage or current between the tip and sample. The pits expand and change with time into either faceted or rounded shapes. These changes are strongly accentuated by the STM imaging process. We discuss explanations to account for the defect creation and STM-assisted surface etching processes.