Improving the resolving power of the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM)
Improving the resolving power of the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM)
Professor Martin Castell
Improvement of the STM image quality after averaging 528 images.
A common method to increase the signal to noise ratio of a data set is to take repeated measurements and average them. This is routinely performed for 2D spectra, where their alignment is straightforward. However, for images the nature and variety of the distortions can severely complicate accurate registration. The usual way to treat images from a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is to take multiple images of the same area and select the one that appears to be of the highest quality whilst discarding the information contained in the other almost identical images. In this project a step change in the resolving power of the STM will be achieved through automated multi-frame averaging (MFA). Our work so far has shown that images with sub 10 pm height resolution can be routinely obtained using this new method.
The description above outlines a possible new research project being offered to prospective new postgraduate students.
For full details of all postgraduate research projects available for new students and how to apply, please see postgraduate projects available.
Note that post-doctoral research positions are advertised under "Work with Us"