Disseny i construcció d'un microscopi d'efecte electroquímic

In this project, it is proposed the construction and development of an electrochemical scanning tunneling microscope unit (ESTM), making use of the instruments belonging to a previous existing atmospheric STM system (control electronics, data acquisition, image processing, scanning tunneling spectroscopic subsystem). The electrochemical unit allows to employ an electrolyte in order to control the sample surface, avoiding problems like excessive reactivity of the surface (basically, organic contamination and surface oxidation). The principal objective of the project is the fabrication of a new ESTM unit, prepare the technique to perform topographic and spectroscopic scannings, in order to make it operative for an electrolyte-surface interface. As an starting point of this stage, we have obtained interesting results about the silicon reaction by means of electrochemical etching by fluorhid