Accurate measurement of atomic magnetic moments by minimizing the tip magnetic field in STM-based electron paramagnetic resonance

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to accurately measure atomic magnetic moments using STM-based EPR by minimizing tip magnetic field effects through optimal tip-sample distances and bistable tips.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to reduce systematic errors in magnetic moment measurements in STM-EPR by identifying specific tip-sample distances and employing bistable tips.

Findings

Identified tip-sample distances that minimize EPR resonance shifts.

Demonstrated averaging of tip influence using bistable tips.

Achieved more accurate magnetic moment measurements.

Abstract

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) performed with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) allows for probing the spin excitation of single atomic species with MHz energy resolution. One of the basic applications of conventional EPR is the precise determination of magnetic moments. However, in an STM, the local magnetic fields of the spin-polarized tip can introduce systematic errors in the measurement of the magnetic moments by EPR. We propose to solve this issue by finding tip-sample distances at which the EPR resonance shift caused by the magnetic field of the tip is minimized. To this end, we measure the dependence of the resonance field on the tip-sample distance at different radiofrequencies and identify specific distances for which the true magnetic moment is found. Additionally, we show that the tip's influence can be averaged out by using magnetically bistable tips, which provide a complementary method to accurately measure the magnetic moment of surface atoms using EPR-STM.