Imaging in real time with the tunneling microscope

Abstract

We report the achievement of real‐time video rate images of the atomic surface of graphite using the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). In this high‐speed mode of operation the topographic information is extracted directly from variations in the tunneling current. We find that this high‐speed technique offers the following advantages: the microscope becomes insensitive to most low frequency vibrations; piezoelectric scanner hysteresis appears to be reduced; and the effect of 1/f noise, which is conjectured to arise from diffusion of molecular species, is reduced by shifting the data to higher frequencies. The real‐time technique offers the opportunity to observe dynamic atomic processes which occur on time scales previously incaccessible to the STM.