Picoscope

The Picoscope is a powerful combined scanning tunnelling and scanning force microscope. It was acquired by RWTH Aachen University as part of the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) and co-financed by the German Research Foundation. At temperatures of 300 mK and magnetic fields of up to 9 T, it achieves spatial resolution in the pm range (10⁻¹² m) and can therefore resolve atomic structures. It can also detect electrical currents and atomic forces smaller than pA or pN, hence the name ‘Picoscope’. The Picoscope can be used to determine, manipulate and address fundamental structural, electronic and mechanics properties of nanostructures. In particular, this instrument can be used to test novel, quantum-mechanical phase-coherent addressing methods by coupling microwaves into the tunnel contact. The atomic spin states and correlations can also be measured directly via tunnel spectroscopy. A decisive factor here is that the instrument can construct diverse structures at the atomic and molecular level on both conductive and electrically insulating surfaces. Starting from planar, atomically defined surfaces, we can produce complex structures on the surface through chemical synthesis or self-organisation and then modify them in a targeted manner in the next step. On the other hand, we can build complex structures ‘bottom-up’ from atoms and molecules randomly distributed on the surface. For more information, please contact Prof. Markus Ternes at the Research Centre or at RWTH Aachen University.