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Updated: May 27, 2026

Electrochemical Etching and Characterization of Sharp Field Emission Points for Electron Impact Ionization
Published on: July 12, 2016
Refined tip preparation by electrochemical etching and ultrahigh vacuum treatment to obtain atomically sharp tips for
Till Hagedorn1, Mehdi El Ouali, William Paul
1Department of Physics, McGill University, 3600 Rue University, Montreal, QC H3A2T8, Canada. hagedorn@physics.mcgill.ca
Abstract:
A modification of the common electrochemical etching setup is presented. The described method reproducibly yields sharp tungsten tips for usage in the scanning tunneling microscope and tuning fork atomic force microscope. In situ treatment under ultrahigh vacuum (p ≤10(-10) mbar) conditions for cleaning and fine sharpening with minimal blunting is described. The structure of the microscopic apex of these tips is atomically resolved with field ion microscopy and cross checked with field emission.
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