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Updated: Aug 21, 2026

All-electronic Nanosecond-resolved Scanning Tunneling Microscopy: Facilitating the Investigation of Single Dopant Charge Dynamics
Published on: January 19, 2018
Scanning-tunneling spectroscopy of surface-state electrons scattered by a slightly disordered two-dimensional dilute
Markus Ternes1, Cédric Weber, Marina Pivetta
1Institut de Physique des Nanostructures, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. Markus.Ternes@epfl.ch
Abstract:
Low temperature (3.9 K) scanning-tunneling spectroscopy on a hexagonal superlattice of Ce adatoms on Ag(111) reveals site-dependent characteristic features in differential conductance spectra and in spectroscopic images at atomic-scale spatial resolution. Using a tight-binding model, we relate the overall spectral structures to the scattering of Ag(111) surface-state electrons by the Ce adatoms, the site dependence to the disorder induced by imperfections of the superlattice, and the opening of a gap in the local density of states to the observed stabilization of superlattices with adatom distances in the range of 2.3-3.5 nm.

