Atom Manipulation on Si and Ge Surfaces using Atomic Force Microscope

Abstract

In this review article, at first, we introduced recent developments of powerful and sensitive atomic force microscope (AFM). Then, we introduced recent three topics related to AFM. The first one is an atom selective imaging of semiconductor surfaces with intermixed Si and Sn adatoms at room temperature (RT), i.e., chemical discrimination of two atom species on semiconductor surfaces at RT. The second one is vertical and lateral atom manipulations of semiconductor atoms based on the mechanical method at low temperature (LT). The last one is a novel atom manipulation method that enables us to create complex nanostructures assembled from more than two atom species at RT. Using this novel atom manipulation method, we constructed “Atom Inlay” at RT, i.e., atom letters “Sn” consisting of Sn atoms embedded in Ge atoms.