STM: Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (2025/26)

The principles and applications of the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) will be presented and
then applied in a case study: iron phthalocyanines deposited on metal surfaces before and after
the oxygen dosage. The course can be divided in two parts: i) a practical part in which the
surfaces will be prepared and characterised on a UHV system and ii) a part in which DFT
modelling will be used to interpret the experimental results.
Prof. Sedona
✔ Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and Tunneling Spectroscopy (TS a brief overview
of the operating principles. (1h)
✔ Experimental practice: deposition of iron phthalocyanines on a metal substrate under UHV
conditions and STM characterization. (3h max 4 students)
Prof. Carlotto
✔ Connection between periodic calculations and STM measurements (1h)
✔ Description of a periodic calculations input file for QuantumEspresso (1h)
✔ Analysis of the optimised structures for metal (iron) phthalocyanines on metal surfaces
before and after oxygen dosage: geometrical parameters, DOS and PDOS and charge density
(1h)
✔ STM simulations at different bias of the different optimised structures (1h