Scanning Gate Spectroscopy on Nanoclusters

A gated probe for scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) has been developed. The probe extends normal STM operations by means of an additional electrode fabricated next to the tunnelling tip. The extra electrode does not make contact with the sample and can be used as a gate. We report on the recipe used for fabricating the tunnelling tip and the gate electrode on a silicon nitride cantilever. We demonstrate the functioning of the scanning gate probes by performing single-electron tunnelling spectroscopy on 20-nm gold clusters for different gate voltages.