TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES 1998 - NISTIR 6268

MISSION
ORGANIZATION
CURRENT DIRECTIONS
TECHNICAL HIGHLIGHTS
FUTURE DIRECTIONS

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

• High Resolution SEMPA. Continually increasing magnetic storage densities and new magnetic technologies such as spintronics require higher resolution imaging of magnetic microstructure than is currently available. In order to respond to industry's needs for higher resolution magnetic imaging tools, we are upgrading our SEMPA facilities. We will take advantage of recent advances in commercial SEM design that have significantly improved spatial resolution, and combine our best, NIST built, electron spin polarization analyzers with a new state-of-the-art SEM. The resulting SEMPA instrument will replace our two aging SEMPAs and provide us with the following improvements: the resolution will be improved by a factor of 2 to 4 allowing sub-10 nm magnetic imaging. The spin analyzer sensitivity will be increased by a factor of 10 to 30 over our current high resolution SEMPA. And, finally, the improved reliability of a new instrument will reduce operating costs and avoid frustrating our industrial customers. The new SEMPA instrument will also have the capability of applying local magnetic fields, so that the relationships between the magnetic microstructure and various relevant magnetic properties such as magnetoresistance can be studied as a function of the applied magnetic field.

• Quantum Electronics and Autonomous Atom Assembly. The Electron Physics Group is undertaking a new program to develop the measurement capability that will allow researchers to probe the underlying physics in quantum confined structures on the nanometer length scale. Electron systems confined to nanoscale dimensions develop quantized energy levels on which a new branch of electronics, quantum electronics, may be based. To meet the measurement challenges that must be overcome to be able to study and understand the quantized energy level structure on a nanometer length scale, the Electron Physics Group is building the Nanoscale Physics Facility. This unique facility combines MBE fabrication methods, to create nanostructures, with a cryogenic scanning tunneling microscope to measure the electron energy level structure. The microscope is of a versatile design for fast turnaround of samples. It will operate at temperatures down to 2 K in intense magnetic fields of up to 10 tesla. To fabricate nanostructures, the facility will employ traditional methods of MBE growth of metal and semiconductor structures in separate vacuum systems with in situ transfer of samples to the microscope. In addition, a novel nanofabrication system is being developed to perform autonomous atom assembly of nanostructures, i.e., the atom-by-atom assembly of desired, complex nanostructures under completely autonomous computer control.

Mission  |  Organization  |  Current Directions  |  Technical Highlights | Future Directions

TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES 1998 - Contents

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Online: April 1999