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High spatial resolution ultrafast scanning tunneling microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2011

Dzmitry Yarotski and
Antoinette J. Taylor
Dzmitry Yarotski
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
Antoinette J. Taylor
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
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Abstract

We demonstrate ultrafast dynamical imaging of surfaces using a scanning tunneling microscope with a low-temperature-grown GaAs tip photoexcited by 100-fs, 800-nm pulses. We detect picosecond transients on a coplanar stripline and demonstrate a temporal resolution (full-width at half maximum) of 1.7 ps. By dynamically imaging the stripline, we demonstrate that the local conductivity in the sample is reflected in the transient correlated current and that 20-nm spatial resolution is achievable for a 2 ps transient, correlated signal. We apply this technique of photoconductively-gated ultrafast scanning tunneling microscopy to study carrier dynamics in InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot samples at T=300 K. The initial carrier relaxation proceeds via Auger carrier capture from the InAs wetting layer (WL) on a timescale of 1–2 ps, followed by recombination of carriers on a 900 ps timescale. Finally, we demonstrate junction-mixing ultrafast STM (JM-USTM) using picosecond voltage pulses propagating on a patterned metal-on-metal (Ti/Pt). Using JM-USTM we have achieved a spatio/temporal resolution of 1 nm/8 ps.

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References

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