# Atomic White-Out: Enabling Atomic Circuitry Through Mechanically Induced Bonding of Single Hydrogen Atoms to a Silicon Surface

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel method using a non-contact atomic force microscope to mechanically manipulate single hydrogen atoms, enabling the formation of covalent bonds with silicon surfaces for nanoelectronic device engineering.

## Contribution

It introduces a mechanically induced bonding technique for single hydrogen atoms to silicon, advancing atomic-scale control in nanoelectronics.

## Key findings

- Single hydrogen atoms can be manipulated and transferred using NC-AFM.
- Mechanical bonding of hydrogen to silicon can passivate dangling bonds.
- Enhanced imaging contrast enables atomic and chemical bond characterization.

## Abstract

We report the mechanically induced formation of a silicon-hydrogen covalent bond and its application in engineering nanoelectronic devices. We show that using the tip of a non-contact atomic force microscope (NC-AFM), a single hydrogen atom could be vertically manipulated. When applying a localized electronic excitation, a single hydrogen atom is desorbed from the hydrogen passivated surface and can be transferred to the tip apex as evidenced from a unique signature in frequency shift curves. In the absence of tunnel electrons and electric field in the scanning probe microscope junction at 0 V, the hydrogen atom at the tip apex is brought very close to a silicon dangling bond, inducing the mechanical formation of a silicon-hydrogen covalent bond and the passivation of the dangling bond. The functionalized tip was used to characterize silicon dangling bonds on the hydrogen-silicon surface, was shown to enhance the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) contrast, and allowed NC-AFM imaging with atomic and chemical bond contrasts. Through examples, we show the importance of this atomic scale mechanical manipulation technique in the engineering of the emerging technology of on-surface dangling bond based nanoelectronic devices.