Application of Chemical Staining Method in Scanning Probe Microscopy

摘要

Since the various kind of scanning probe microscopes (SPM) were invented during the last three decades, seeing individual atoms has become routine work in many laboratories. On many complex surfaces on crystals and thin films consisting more than one kind of atoms, however, it has been proven to be extremely difficult to distinguish different atoms, if not impossible. Our research group has introduced into the scanning tunneling microscopy the use of the chemical staining method widely used in optical microscopy of microbiology. We have succeeded resolving the Si and Ge atoms in the Si/Ge surfaces. This concept of staining method should be also very useful for any type of scanning probe microscopes.