Detecting and Directing Single Molecule Binding Events on H-Si(100) with Application to Ultradense Data Storage

Many diverse material systems are being explored to enable smaller, more capable and energy efficient devices. These bottom up approaches for atomic and molecular electronics, quantum computation, and data storage all rely on a well-developed understanding of materials at the atomic scale. Here, we report a versatile scanning tunneling microscope (STM) charge characterization technique, which reduces the influence of the typically perturbative STM tip field, to develop this understanding even further. Using this technique, we can now observe single molecule binding events to atomically defined reactive sites (fabricated on a hydrogen-terminated silicon surface) through electronic detection. We then developed a simplified error correction tool for automated hydrogen lithography, quickly directing molecular hydrogen binding events using these sites to precisely repassivate surface dangling bonds (without the use of a scanned probe). We additionally incorporated this molecular repassivation technique as the primary rewriting mechanism in ultradense atomic data storage designs (0.88 petabits per in²).