Mechanism and development of dip-pen nanolithography （DPN）

Dip-pen nanolithography is a new scanning probe lithography （SPL） technique based on atomic force microscopy （AFM） , and now has made a great progress. The process of dip-pen lithography involves the adsorption of ink molecules on AFM tip, the formation of water meniscus, the transport of ink molecules, and diffusion of ink molecules on the substrate. More factors such as temperature, humidity, tip, scanning speed and so on will influence the process of dip-pen lithography. The paper analyzes in detail the mechanism of this technique, introduces synthetically the latest development, including electrochemical DPN, more-mode DPN, multiple DPN, multi-probe array DPN and so on. Finally, the paper describes the characteristics and the application of DPN.     

Hard-tip, soft-spring lithography

Nanofabrication strategies are becoming increasingly expensive and equipment-intensive, and consequently less accessible to researchers. As an alternative, scanning probe lithography has become a popular means of preparing nanoscale structures, in part owing to its relatively low cost and high resolution, and a registration accuracy that exceeds most existing technologies. However, increasing the throughput of cantilever-based scanning probe systems while maintaining their resolution and registration advantages has from the outset been a significant challenge. Even with impressive recent advances in cantilever array design, such arrays tend to be highly specialized for a given application, expensive, and often difficult to implement. It is therefore difficult to imagine commercially viable production methods based on scanning probe systems that rely on conventional cantilevers. Here we describe a low-cost and scalable cantilever-free tip-based nanopatterning method that uses an array of hard silicon tips mounted onto an elastomeric backing. This method-which we term hard-tip, soft-spring lithography-overcomes the throughput problems of cantilever-based scanning probe systems and the resolution limits imposed by the use of elastomeric stamps and tips: it is capable of delivering materials or energy to a surface to create arbitrary patterns of features with sub-50-nm resolution over centimetre-scale areas. We argue that hard-tip, soft-spring lithography is a versatile nanolithography strategy that should be widely adopted by academic and industrial researchers for rapid prototyping applications.     

Thermal radiation scanning tunnelling microscopy

In standard near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), a subwavelength probe acts as an optical 'stethoscope' to map the near field produced at the sample surface by external illumination. This technique has been applied using visible, infrared, terahertz and gigahertz radiation to illuminate the sample, providing a resolution well beyond the diffraction limit. NSOM is well suited to study surface waves such as surface plasmons or surface-phonon polaritons. Using an aperture NSOM with visible laser illumination, a near-field interference pattern around a corral structure has been observed, whose features were similar to the scanning tunnelling microscope image of the electronic waves in a quantum corral. Here we describe an infrared NSOM that operates without any external illumination: it is a near-field analogue of a night-vision camera, making use of the thermal infrared evanescent fields emitted by the surface, and behaves as an optical scanning tunnelling microscope. We therefore term this instrument a 'thermal radiation scanning tunnelling microscope' (TRSTM). We show the first TRSTM images of thermally excited surface plasmons, and demonstrate spatial coherence effects in near-field thermal emission.     

High-resolution spectroscopy of two-dimensional electron systems

Spectroscopic methods involving the sudden injection or ejection of electrons in materials are a powerful probe of electronic structure and interactions. These techniques, such as photoemission and tunnelling, yield measurements of the 'single-particle' density of states spectrum of a system. This density of states is proportional to the probability of successfully injecting or ejecting an electron in these experiments. It is equal to the number of electronic states in the system able to accept an injected electron as a function of its energy, and is among the most fundamental and directly calculable quantities in theories of highly interacting systems. However, the two-dimensional electron system (2DES), host to remarkable correlated electron states such as the fractional quantum Hall effect, has proved difficult to probe spectroscopically. Here we present an improved version of time-domain capacitance spectroscopy that allows us to measure the single-particle density of states of a 2DES with unprecedented fidelity and resolution. Using the method, we perform measurements of a cold 2DES, providing direct measurements of interesting correlated electronic effects at energies that are difficult to reach with other techniques; these effects include the single-particle exchange-enhanced spin gap, single-particle lifetimes in the quantum Hall system, and exchange splitting of Landau levels not at the Fermi surface.     

Determination of surface topography of biological specimens at high resolution by scanning tunnelling microscopy

Although techniques are available for the determination of the three-dimensional structure of biological specimens, for example scanning electron microscopy, they all have some serious drawback, such as low resolution, the requirement for crystals or for the sample to be analysed in a high vacuum. In an attempt to develop a technique for high-resolution three-dimensional structure analysis of non-crystalline biological material, we have tested the applicability of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), a method that has been used successfully in the analysis of metal and semiconductor surface structures. We report here that scanning tunnelling electron microscopy can be used to determine the surface topography of biological specimens at atmospheric pressure and room temperature, giving a vertical resolution of the order of 1 A. Our results show that quantum mechanical tunnelling of electrons through biological material is possible provided that the specimen is deposited on a conducting surface.     

基于线性透镜阵列的面结构光三维测量方法

面结构光测量无法处理类镜面物体由反光产生的强光区域,且无法提取物体在阴影区域里的有效信息,造成测量噪声大和测量数据不完整.基于正弦光栅的面结构光测量方法,提出一种基于线性透镜阵列的面结构光三维测量方法,通过在测量设备和被测量物体间加装线性透镜阵列,使得正弦光栅在竖直方向把一维的光线转化为一个二维反射光的光域,有效地解决了结构光在测量过程中存在的反光及阴影问题.经过理论分析与实验验证,该方法切实可行.     

用时间域相位解包法测量不连续物体的三维轮廓

针对传统相位解包方法不能测量不连续物体轮廓的问题,提出了一种基于时间域相位解包的傅里叶变换技术.该技术采用先投影一系列间距随时间变化的正弦条纹图到被测物体上,再用电荷耦合器件和图像采集卡来获取由物体面形调制而变形的条纹图,并沿时间轴对这些变形条纹做傅里叶变换、滤波和反变换,然后沿时间轴解包,得到图像上每个时刻每个像素点的相位.由此得到的相位值在像面内是相互独立并且是沿时间轴变化的,这个相位变化率包含有物体的高度信息.实验表明,该技术成功地解决了不连续物体的轮廓测量问题,与传统的空间相位解包方法相比,该技术最大的优点是能够方便、准确地测量不连续和大陡度物体的轮廓.     

Detection of infrared photons with a superconductor

A superconductor single photon detector based on NbN nanowire was fabricated using electron beam lithography （EBL） and reactive ion etching （RIE） for infrared photon detection. When biased well below its critical current at 4.2 K, NbN nanowire is very sensitive to the incident photons. Typical telecommunication photons with a wavelength of 1550 nm were detected by this detector. Data analysis indicates the repeating rate of the device with 200 nm NbN nanowire may be up to 100 MHz, and the quantum efficiency is about 0,01% when biased at 0.95/c.     

扫描探针显微镜漂移的定量测量方法

对扫描探针显微镜(SPM)仪器漂移的定量测量的几种方法进行探讨,提出应用二维零位标记进行漂移测量.分析比较使用普通样品、周期二维光栅、二维零位标记和原子光栅在测定仪器漂移中的优缺点.结果表明:应用二维零位标记的测量技术对探针与样品形貌耦合引起的图像误差不敏感,漂移测量范围不受光栅单元尺寸影响.该方法优于采用普通样品和规则周期的二维光栅样品的方法,而应用原子光栅可以预计达到亚原子量级的超高精度的SPM漂移测量.     

表面等离子体亚波长光学的研究

表面等离子体激元是局域在金属表面的一种由自由电子和光子相互作用形成的混合激发态.改变金属表面的结构,SPPs与光相互作用的特性也会随之改变.所以,SPPs在光存储、光激发、显微技术和生物光子学等领域的应用受到日益关注.首先,介绍了SPPs的基本特性和表面等离子体亚波长光学研究热点,然后用微加工的手段制备了亚波长的环形和分形结构的样品,并用实验测量和传输矩阵的方法得出两级cross dipole分形结构在近红外和中红外的透过曲线,在1.72μm和5.2μm的波长处有两个强的透过峰,其透过率分别为36%和49%,理论和实验结果一致.     

用变频条纹图扫描技术测量陡峭物体的三维轮廓

针对传统条纹投影方法不能测量陡峭物体三维轮廓的问题，提出了一种基于相移的变频条纹图扫描测量技术．采用投影装置投射一系列频率随时间变化的正弦条纹图到被测物体上，且在每个频率下完成相移条纹扫描．用电荷耦合器件(CCD)和图像采集卡记录这些变形的条纹图，对这些条纹图沿时间轴提取相位并进行处理，可以得到图像上每个像素点的相位和沿时间轴的相位变化率，由此得到的每个像素点的相位值在像面内都是相互独立的，而相位变化率包含物体的高度信息，因此可以得到物体的三维轮廓．实验证明，该技术能够成功地测量陡峭物体的轮廓．     

巨型功率晶体管场限环研究

通过解联立一维泊松方程得到了场限环结构的电场和电位分布.讨论了环间距、环宽、N-掺杂浓度、结深和表面电荷密度等参数的影响,得出了归一化击穿电压和环间距计算值.用这些计算值可以推算多环间结构的击穿电压和作为场限环设计的依据.     

Cooling a nanomechanical resonator with quantum back-action

Quantum mechanics demands that the act of measurement must affect the measured object. When a linear amplifier is used to continuously monitor the position of an object, the Heisenberg uncertainty relationship requires that the object be driven by force impulses, called back-action. Here we measure the back-action of a superconducting single-electron transistor (SSET) on a radio-frequency nanomechanical resonator. The conductance of the SSET, which is capacitively coupled to the resonator, provides a sensitive probe of the latter's position; back-action effects manifest themselves as an effective thermal bath, the properties of which depend sensitively on SSET bias conditions. Surprisingly, when the SSET is biased near a transport resonance, we observe cooling of the nanomechanical mode from 550 mK to 300 mK--an effect that is analogous to laser cooling in atomic physics. Our measurements have implications for nanomechanical readout of quantum information devices and the limits of ultrasensitive force microscopy (such as single-nuclear-spin magnetic resonance force microscopy). Furthermore, we anticipate the use of these back-action effects to prepare ultracold and quantum states of mechanical structures, which would not be accessible with existing technology.     

Probing carrier dynamics in nanostructures by picosecond cathodoluminescence

Picosecond and femtosecond spectroscopy allow the detailed study of carrier dynamics in nanostructured materials. In such experiments, a laser pulse normally excites several nanostructures at once. However, spectroscopic information may also be acquired using pulses from an electron beam in a modern electron microscope, exploiting a phenomenon called cathodoluminescence. This approach offers several advantages. The multimode imaging capabilities of the electron microscope enable the correlation of optical properties (via cathodoluminescence) with surface morphology (secondary electron mode) at the nanometre scale. The broad energy range of the electrons can excite wide-bandgap materials, such as diamond- or gallium-nitride-based structures that are not easily excited by conventional optical means. But perhaps most intriguingly, the small beam can probe a single selected nanostructure. Here we apply an original time-resolved cathodoluminescence set-up to describe carrier dynamics within single gallium-arsenide-based pyramidal nanostructures with a time resolution of 10 picoseconds and a spatial resolution of 50 nanometres. The behaviour of such charge carriers could be useful for evaluating elementary components in quantum computers, optical quantum gates or single photon sources for quantum cryptography.     

Designer Dirac fermions and topological phases in molecular graphene

The observation of massless Dirac fermions in monolayer graphene has generated a new area of science and technology seeking to harness charge carriers that behave relativistically within solid-state materials. Both massless and massive Dirac fermions have been studied and proposed in a growing class of Dirac materials that includes bilayer graphene, surface states of topological insulators and iron-based high-temperature superconductors. Because the accessibility of this physics is predicated on the synthesis of new materials, the quest for Dirac quasi-particles has expanded to artificial systems such as lattices comprising ultracold atoms. Here we report the emergence of Dirac fermions in a fully tunable condensed-matter system-molecular graphene-assembled by atomic manipulation of carbon monoxide molecules over a conventional two-dimensional electron system at a copper surface. Using low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy, we embed the symmetries underlying the two-dimensional Dirac equation into electron lattices, and then visualize and shape the resulting ground states. These experiments show the existence within the system of linearly dispersing, massless quasi-particles accompanied by a density of states characteristic of graphene. We then tune the quantum tunnelling between lattice sites locally to adjust the phase accrual of propagating electrons. Spatial texturing of lattice distortions produces atomically sharp p-n and p-n-p junction devices with two-dimensional control of Dirac fermion density and the power to endow Dirac particles with mass. Moreover, we apply scalar and vector potentials locally and globally to engender topologically distinct ground states and, ultimately, embedded gauge fields, wherein Dirac electrons react to 'pseudo' electric and magnetic fields present in their reference frame but absent from the laboratory frame. We demonstrate that Landau levels created by these gauge fields can be taken to the relativistic magnetic quantum limit, which has so far been inaccessible in natural graphene. Molecular graphene provides a versatile means of synthesizing exotic topological electronic phases in condensed matter using tailored nanostructures.     

Bose-Einstein condensation on a microelectronic chip

Although Bose-Einstein condensates of ultracold atoms have been experimentally realizable for several years, their formation and manipulation still impose considerable technical challenges. An all-optical technique that enables faster production of Bose-Einstein condensates was recently reported. Here we demonstrate that the formation of a condensate can be greatly simplified using a microscopic magnetic trap on a chip. We achieve Bose-Einstein condensation inside the single vapour cell of a magneto-optical trap in as little as 700 ms-more than a factor of ten faster than typical experiments, and a factor of three faster than the all-optical technique. A coherent matter wave is emitted normal to the chip surface when the trapped atoms are released into free fall; alternatively, we couple the condensate into an 'atomic conveyor belt', which is used to transport the condensed cloud non-destructively over a macroscopic distance parallel to the chip surface. The possibility of manipulating laser-like coherent matter waves with such an integrated atom-optical system holds promise for applications in interferometry, holography, microscopy, atom lithography and quantum information processing.     

Charge carrier photogeneration in conjugated polymer PhPPV/R6G composite system

Photoconducting organic materials including conju-gated polymers[1―3], organic molecules[4,5], stacked disco- stic liquid crystals[6,7] and self-assembling organic semi-conductors[8,9] have attracted intense interests due to their extraordinary performances. Their charge carrier photo-generation mechanism has been one of the most important subjects of large amounts of publications in view of possi-ble applications in electronic devices such as photovoltaic cells[10―19]. The charge carrier ph…     

应用在线整定广义最小方差多项式权值的测头控制方法

在曲面工件的高精度、高效率自动扫描测量过程中,为了提高测头自动跟踪扫瞄控制的精度和平稳性,提出了基于在线整定多项式权值的广义最小方差(OSPW_GMV)控制方法.该方法的主要思想是根据在线估计的被控对象参数及OSPW_GMV的输出,在线调整多项式的权值,实现测头自动跟踪扫瞄的控制.实验结果证明,使用具有高跟踪精度和强鲁棒性的OSPW_GMV控制器,可使测头跟踪过程的误差小于0.1mm的跟踪要求,且每次运算时间与广义最小方差控制器相差不大,因此该控制方法在一些实时性及控制精度要求较高的精密检测场合,有较好的应用价值.     

High resolution imaging using scanning ion conductance microscopy with improved distance feedback control

Microscopy is an essential technique for observation on living cells. There is currently great interest in apply scanning probe microscopy to image living biological cells in their natural environment at the nanometer scale. Scanning ion conductance microscopy is a new form of scanning probe microscopy, which enables non-contact high resolution imaging of living biological cells. Based on a scanned nanopipette in physiological buffer, the distance feedback control uses the ion current to control the distance between the pipette tip and the sample surface. However, this feedback control has difficulties over slopes on convoluted cell surfaces, which limits its resolution. In this study, we present an improved form of feedback control that removes the contribution of up to the third order slope from the ion current signal, hence providing a more accurate signal for controlling the distance. We show that this allows faster and lower noise topographic high resolution imaging.     

High resolution imaging using scanning ion conductance microscopy with improved distance feedback control

Microscopy is an essential technique for observation on living cells. There is currently great interest in applying scanning probe microscopy to image-living biological cells in their natural environment at the nanometer scale. Scanning ion conductance microscopy is a new form of scanning probe microscopy, which enables non-contact high-resolution imaging of living biological cells. Based on a scanned nanopipette in physiological buffer, the distance feedback control uses the ion current to control the distance between the pipette tip and the sample surface. However, this feedback control has difficulties over slopes on convoluted cell surfaces, which limits its resolution. In this study, we present an improved form of feedback control that removes the contribution of up to the third-order slope from the ion current signal, hence providing a more accurate signal for controlling the distance. We show that this allows faster and lower noise topographic high-resolution imaging.