April 26, 2011

By Audrey Rabalais

After six long years of designing and constructing, NQPI and SPIRE students and faculty are finally seeing their 2005 sketches of a state-of-the-art research system jump from the paper into full-functioning reality. The new system includes a low-temperature, spin-polarized scanning-tunneling microscope for the investigation of surface spin and magnetic structures. The system also includes a laser to nucleate, or begin growth of, thin atomic layers as well as eight evaporators to stimulate continuous thin film growth inside the growth chamber – twice as many as the older system used by NQPI and SPIRE researchers.

The main difference between the new system and the older system is the STM, said Wenzhi Lin, a doctoral student who has been working on the system since 2005. The new STM will perform at very low temperatures. Atoms under the microscope become inert when they are cold. This takes the “jiggle” out of the atoms in the scanning tip of the microscope and the atoms of the sample, allowing for clearer pictures. The system will be cooled by liquid nitrogen and liquid helium.

The system was initially funded with a $427,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research. Additional funding came from National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and Ohio University. The SPIRE/NQPI researchers lowered potential costs by designing the system themselves and constructing it in an on-campus machine shop. A system such as this designed and built commercially could cost as much as $2 million, said Arthur Smith, professor and NQPI director.

“Before the system is able to deliver the kind of unprecedented results it was designed for, a few small bugs still need to be worked out,” Smith said, “But this is normal.”

Lin said he hopes that the system will be completely finished within the next six months as he continues his work at NQPI as a postdoc.

“It is such a great opportunity to start from the very beginning of such an exciting project and I feel good watching the whole machine grow up,” Lin said.