| Title: | Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) Simulator* |
| Meeting: | 116th AAPT National Meeting: New Orleans, LA |
| Location: | N/A |
| Date: | Monday, January 5 |
| Time: | 10:15 a.m. |
| Author: |
N. Sanjay Rebello, Kansas
State Univ. 785-532-1633, srebello@phys.ksu.edu |
| Co-Author(s): | Dean A. Zollman |
| Abstract: | The Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) enables students to learn how an STM works. It is not designed to substitute a real STM, but rather to give students an insight into its physics. The program allows the student to start with a real STM image of a sample, observe the cross sectional profile of the sample surface along any direction, and relate it to the measured tunneling current from the STM's probe tip. While the program does not give any quantitatively useful results pertaining to the specific sample that is being observed, it demonstrates how the concepts of potential energy diagrams, wave functions, and tunneling probability can be applied to understand the STM. No knowledge of higher level mathematics is required to use the program, which is targeted at students in high school or higher. The program was built using Visual C++ 4.0, and runs on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Both versions of the program are available at http://www.phys.ksu.edu/perg/vqm/programs. |