Week+of+10-8-2012

10-8-2012 I did not feel well enough to go in today as I had a crippling migraine. 10-9-2012 I came in today and immediately changed the tip based on Matt's scans from earlier. They were horrid and full of noise. The sample is not coated with C-60 like it has been recently. It is coated with 50% Dodecathiol(C-12 with a Sulfur) and 50% Octanethiol(C-8 with a Sulfur). We are using this to hopefully avoid the contamination from the Octanethiol inside the box that has been messing with our C-60 results. AD-8134.47 Å, 400 ms/line, 4 A/D. It was a fairly blurry image. However, it was large so this can be mostly expected. I zoomed in to the region in the middle of the lower half. This image displayed a considerable amount of features. There were both mounds and valleys. Neither was much more frequent than the other. The tip's quality cannot be easily dter AE-2000 Å, 200 ms/line, 32 A/D. This was a much better image. However, the lower third made it much blurrier than it was for the first half. I moved the scanning region up to avoid the drop-offs causing this problem. AF-2000 Å, 200 ms/line, 32 A/D. This image was much clearer than the previous one. However, it still included the pits from before. I tried moving it up again to accommodate for this. AG- 2000 Å, 200 ms/line, 32 A/D. I zoomed in on this image to a region in the upper left quadrant. AH- 750 Å, 100 ms/line, 128 A/D. After fixing the drift, I scanned the same region again. The streaks in this image are more obstructive than in the previous images. Atomic resolution, the goal, is not present here. Because of this, not much can be gained from heating this region and scanning it again. AI-750 Å, 100 ms/line, 128 A/D. I moved the scanning region up after this image to include the largest mound from AG in that region. I also turned the gain down then tried to take this image again to get better resolution. AJ- 750 Å, 100 ms/line, 128 A/D. I retracted the tip 15 steps then heated the sample for 3 seconds. I let the sample cool for a few minutes. It took 19 steps to approach afterwards. I let it drift for a couple more minutes before scanning again. The streaks in this image, especially over the valleys, indicate fairly clearly that the tip is of low quality. Atomic resolution does not seem to be present here and the boundaries of the features indicate even more so that the tip was poor. AK-8134.47 Å, 4 A/D, 400 ms/line. I found the area from earlier that I needed so I stopped the scan and adjusted the X/Y-offsets. AL-8134.47 Å, 4 A/D, 400 ms/line. I zoomed in to the region I scanned earlier. Almost all of the features remained the same as AD on this macro-sized scan.

AM- 2000 Å, 32 A/D, 200 ms/line. I moved the scanning region up and to the right to position it in the same spot as earlier. AN- 2000 Å, 32 A/D, 200 ms/line. I stopped the scan because I was quickly running out of time and found the region I needed to zoom in to. I did just that and scanned the region from earlier. This and the previous image appear to be less blurry than those from earlier, but the following images show us otherwise. AO- 750 Å, 128 A/D, 100 ms/line. It was a fairly blurry image. I tried scanning it with 200 ms/line. The streaks in this image increased greatly. There must have been either a decrease in the quality of the tip or in the quality of the sample as it was heated.

AP-750 Å, 128 A/D, 200 ms/line. It seemed to turn out even worse than the previous image with a larger amount of blurriness. Not much improved. It is less blurry but has essentially the same amount of streaks. The boundaries on all of the features are not well-defined and there is certainly no atomic resolution here.