The authors have developed a scanning tunnelling optoelectronic micros
cope (STOEM) and measured electric pulses with a 2.5ps width correspon
ding to a time resolution better than 2ps. This substantial improvemen
t was realised using low temperature-grown GaAs (LT-GaAs) for the phot
oconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) on the probe and by reducing t
he probe dimension.