News

May 31st, 2021

Excillum and Scienta Omicron Japan Partner for Services and Spare Part Supply in Japan

HAXPES Lab System  | © Scienta Omicron

Users of Excillum X-ray sources in Japan will have access to technical support in Japanese with experts located in the same time zone. Scienta Omicron Japan provides the services, in line with their strategy to support international advanced instrumentation deployed in Japan. Excillum and Scienta Omicron have successfully worked together for years as Excillum’s MetalJet is the X-ray source in Scienta Omicron’s HAXPES Lab system, and the knowledge and experience gained will now benefit all Excillum customers in Japan.

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May 10th, 2021

Graphene Nanoribbons Need to be Protected from Oxygen to Remain Functional

bond-resolving scanning probe microscopy (BR-SPM) | © Mapping Ignorance

Atomically precise graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are increasingly being hailed as the potential future of molecular electronics due to the tuneability of their electronic properties, which can be altered via adjusting their length, width, edge structure and the addition of heteroatoms or other doping groups. In their recently published study in ACS Nano, 2021, 15, 3, a team of researchers has used a combination of bond-resolving scanning probe microscopy (BR-SPM), along with theoretical calculations to study (3,1)-chiral graphene nanoribbons [(3,1)-chGNRs] that were synthesized on a Au(111) surface and then exposed to oxidizing environments. All STM experiments were performed using a Scienta Omicron Low Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (LT-STM), cooled to 4.3 K.

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May 5th, 2021

The Acidity of Individual Atoms - Breakthrough at TU Wien

From left to right: Ulrike Diebold, Margareta Wagner, Michael Schmid, Bernd Meyer, Martin Setvin  | © Image courtesy of Ulrike Diebold, TU Wien

Researchers at the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien can now determine the proton affinity of different surface sites of indium oxide with atomic precision. In a recently published Nature paper, they probed the strength of the hydrogen bonds at the surface sites of indium oxide with the tip of a non-contact atomic force microscope and found quantitative agreement with density functional theory calculations. The experiments were carried out in two different UHV chambers based on a two-vessel system with base pressure of <2x10-10 mbr and <2x10-11 mbr in the preparation and analysis chambers. The analysis chambers are equipped with a Scienta Omicron low-temperature STM/AFM head and a Tribus head respectively, using qPlus sensors and low noise amplifiers.

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April 18th, 2021

Tracking Topological Conditions in Graphene

The scanning tunnel microscope’s measurements were made in the Solid Surfaces Analysis lab at Chemnitz University of Technology by researchers including doctoral student Thi Thuy Nhung Nguyen | © Press Office and Crossmedia Communications Archive/Jacob Müller

International research team shows how carbon-based nanostructures can get a new functionality – research results are presented in the magazine Nano Letters.

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