A FULLY COMPUTERIZED SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE

A new, fully computerized and inexpensive, scanning tunnelling microsc ope was designed and built. Its key design feature is the application of the high sensitivity bimorph, for the coarse positioning of the bim orph is > 0.03 mm and can be divided up to the 12 bit number of steps. The bimorph positioning implies that this microscope is fully compute r controlled, and using of bimorph instead of inch-worm implies low co st of the unit. The microscope can create images of the surface in the constant current mode and in the imaging current mode. The presented microscope works with the z-axis analog or digital feedback loop optio nally. All parameters of the analog and digital feedback loop are comp uter controlled. Due to the digital z-axis feedback loop benefits, ele ctron tunneling spectroscopy mode is naturally accessible. The perform ance of the microscope was tested in air by imaging of surface of HOPG (high oriented pyrolytic graphite).