Site-selective substitutional doping with atomic precision on stepped Al (111) surface by single-atom manipulation

Chang Chen; Jinhu Zhang; Guofeng Dong; Hezhu Shao; Bo-Yuan Ning; Li Zhao; Xi-Jing Ning; Jun Zhuang

doi:10.1186/1556-276X-9-235

Site-selective substitutional doping with atomic precision on stepped Al (111) surface by single-atom manipulation

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2014 May 13;9(1):235. doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-9-235. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Chang Chen¹, Jinhu Zhang¹, Guofeng Dong¹, Hezhu Shao¹, Bo-Yuan Ning¹, Li Zhao², Xi-Jing Ning³, Jun Zhuang¹

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
³ Applied Ion Beam Physics Laboratory, Institute of Modern Physics, Department of Nuclear Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.

Abstract

In fabrication of nano- and quantum devices, it is sometimes critical to position individual dopants at certain sites precisely to obtain the specific or enhanced functionalities. With first-principles simulations, we propose a method for substitutional doping of individual atom at a certain position on a stepped metal surface by single-atom manipulation. A selected atom at the step of Al (111) surface could be extracted vertically with an Al trimer-apex tip, and then the dopant atom will be positioned to this site. The details of the entire process including potential energy curves are given, which suggests the reliability of the proposed single-atom doping method.

Keywords: Atomic precision; Metal surface; Single-atom doping; Single-atom manipulation; Substitutional.