Low Temperature UHV STM/AFM
Low Temperature UHV STM/AFM
NanoEarth
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL-PNNL)
- Imaging
- All Imaging
- Probe
Description
EMSL's ultra-high vacuum, low-temperature scanning probe microscope instrument, or UHV LT SPM, is the preeminent system dedicated to surface chemistry and physics at low temperatures down to 5 K. Operating at low temperatures provides high mechanical stability, superior vacuum conditions, and negligible drift for long-term experiments. With thermal diffusion being entirely suppressed, stable imaging becomes possible even for weakly bound species. The system is primarily used for probingsingle-site chemical reactivity, while the combination with a hyperthermal molecular beam allows the study of important chemical processes at energies corresponding to the operational temperatures well beyond typical UHV studies. The LT SPM provides a unique combination of tools (including ensembleaveraging surface analytical techniques) to examine the molecular-level details of eterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis. Among them are the static aspects of adsorption, direct identification of adsorbate sites, and ordered structures; and adsorbate-adsorbate and adsorbate-substrate interactions.