Week+of+5-6-2013

5-8-2013 I began the day in the lab by scanning a mixed monolayer sample of Octanethiol and adamantanethiol on Au(111). When I came in, the Peltier cooling system was off because Matt smelled something burning and thought it might be due to the heated side of the Peltier but found out afterwards it was due to new asphalt being set outside the building. We turned on the cooler and took it about 30 minutes for it to equilibriate at a temperature and for it to stop drifting. It finally equilibriate between -9.0 and -9.1 degrees Celsius. AL-1.17 µm, 8 A/D, 150 ms/line. Following this image, I scanned the same area a second time to check for the drift. After the image, I had to adjust the Z-drift and then I scanned again.

AM- 1.17 µm, 8 A/D, 150 ms/line. I zoomed into the upper right of this image as it looked fairly flat. AN-1000 Å, 64 A/D, 25 ms/line. I scanned this region a second time to once more check for drift. AO-1000 Å,64 A/D, 25 ms/line. I scanned this region a third time although there did not seem to be any considerable drift between the two images. AP-1000 Å, 64 A/D, 25 ms/line. I heated the sample after this image for two seconds then let it cool for about 10 minutes. AQ-1.17 µm, 8 A/D, 150 ms/line. We were able to find the spot again after the heating and I zoomed into the same spot. AR-2000 Å, 32 A/D, 150 ms/line. I zoomed in to the upper middle right as it closely resembled the region from earlier. AS-1000 Å, 64 A/D, 25 ms/line. I was able to take an image of essentially the same area as before then I heated it again for five seconds. I let it cool for 10 minutes following that. The tip crashed during the heating. AT-1.17 µm, 8 A/D, 150 ms/line. I moved the X-offset several microns to the left in order to find the region from before as the heating caused the sample to move fairly far away from its original position. AU-1.17 µm, 8 A/D, 150 ms/line. I could find the region from earlier in this image so I zoomed far out and scanned the largest possible area that the scope could scan. AV- 3 µm, 2 A/D, 200 ms/line. I moved the scanning region about ten microns to the right after this image. AW- 3 µm, 2 A/D, 200 ms/line. I moved the scanning region left and up after this image. AX- 3 µm, 2 A/D, 200 ms/line. I moved the tip down after this image. AY- 3 µm, 2 A/D, 200 ms/line. The strangeness acquired in the last four images can be attributed to the scope reaching the extent of its scannable range. In my analysis of these last four images, I can not find any region that closely resembles the region which we had been scanning earlier in the day. This was quite unfortunate and was probably due to a great amount of thermal drift in the scope. This seems to be more likely to have occurred than the surface drastically changing because it was only heated for 5 seconds. The tip crashing into the surface could have altered it too but not to the extent that it would alter an area the size which I was scanning.