Earthquake Countermeasures in Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Experiments Using Earthquake Early Warning

Abstract

Frequent earthquakes in Japan can be problematic for vibration-sensitive measurements. For example, in scanning tunneling microscope (STM) experiments, seismic vibrations cause noises in the data and sometimes lead to a tip crash against the sample surface. The risk of tip crash rises during spectroscopic imaging measurements using STM, where the feedback control is disabled for most of the long measurement time. Here, we have developed a system to prevent tip crashes by retracting the tip in response to the earthquake early warning of the Japan Meteorological Agency. The technique utilizes a built-in function of a commercial STM controller, and an earthquake monitoring service offered by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention. We present data to demonstrate how the system works at an earthquake. Our work provides hints for conducting vibration-sensitive measurements in earthquake-prone countries.