Qian Guoguang, Saha Swatilekha, Lewis K M
Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2010 Jan;81(1):016110. doi: 10.1063/1.3293459.
A simple method to prepare gold tips for scanning tunneling microscopy has been introduced. In this method, electrochemical etching without a hazardous electrolyte was employed. The setup uses basic laboratory instrumentation to control the etching process. This avoids purchasing complicated, expensive, and dedicated equipment for tip preparation. A procedure to optimize the etching parameters by setting the current limit is described. Etched tips were checked with both optical and scanning electron microscopy.
