Synchrotron x-ray scanning tunneling microscopy reaches real-space characterization of just one atom

<p>The real-space observation of chemistry and magnetic structure using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) or synchrotron-based x-ray microscopy (XM) continues to have a tremendous impact on our understanding of nanoscale materials. However, although STM provides high spatial resolution, it lacks direct chemical contrast. On the other hand, XM can provide chemical as well as magnetic sensitivity, but the spatial resolution is inferior. In order to overcome these limitations, we have developed a technique that combines the spin sensitivity and chemical contrast of synchrotron x-rays with the locality of STM.</p><p></p><p>Generally, materials characterization by x-rays requires a large number of atoms and reducing the material quantity for measurements is a long-standing goal. To date, attogram amount of sample can be detected by x-rays; however, this is still in the range of 10⁴ atoms or more and gaining access to a much smaller samples is becoming extremely arduous.</p><p></p><p>In this presentation, we show that x-rays can be used to characterize the elemental and chemical state of just one atom [1]. Using a specialized tip as a detector, x-ray excited currents generated from an iron and a terbium atom coordinated to organic ligands are detected. The fingerprints of a single atom, the L_2,3 and M_4,5 absorption edge signals for iron and terbium respectively, are clearly observed in x-ray absorption spectra. X-ray excited resonance tunnelling is dominant for the iron atom. The x-ray signal can be sensed only when the tip detector is located directly above the atom in extreme proximity, which confirms atomically localized detection in the tunnelling regime. Our work connects synchrotron x-rays with a quantum tunnelling process and opens future x-rays experiments for simultaneous characterizations of elemental, and chemical properties of materials at the ultimate single atom limit.</p><p></p><p>This work was performed at the Advanced Photon Source and the Center for Nanoscale Materials, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.</p><p></p><p>[1] Nature 618, 69-73 (2023).</p>