Elemental fingerprinting of materials with sensitivity at the atomic limit.

Shirato, Nozomi; Cummings, Marvin; Kersell, Heath; Li, Yang; Stripe, Benjamin; Rosenmann, Daniel; Hla, Saw-Wai; Rose, Volker · Nano Lett · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

By using synchrotron X-rays as a probe and a nanofabricated smart tip of a tunneling microscope as a detector, we have achieved chemical fingerprinting of individual nickel clusters on a Cu(111) surface at 2 nm lateral resolution, and at the ultimate single-atomic height sensitivity. Moreover, by varying the photon energy, we have succeeded to locally measure photoionization cross sections of just a single Ni nanocluster, which opens new exciting opportunities for chemical imaging of nanoscale materials.