An Ultra-High Vacuum Scanning Tunneling Microscope with Pulse Tube and Joule-Thomson cooling operating at sub-pm z-noise

TL;DR

This paper presents a compact UHV STM system operating at 1.5 K with sub-picometer z-noise, achieved through innovative vibrational decoupling and thermal management using pulse tube and Joule-Thomson cooling.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel UHV STM design that combines pulse tube and Joule-Thomson cooling without external liquids, achieving ultra-low temperatures and minimal vibrational noise.

Findings

Achieved 1.5 K temperature with <1 mK temperature oscillation.

Attained 300 fm RMS z-noise in the 0.1 Hz - 5 kHz range.

Enabled radio frequency excitations up to 40 GHz at the tunnel junction.

Abstract

We describe a compact ultra-high vacuum (UHV) scanning tunneling microscope (STM) system that does not need any external supply of cooling liquids. It achieves temperatures down to 1.5 K and a z-noise down to 300 fmRMS for the frequency range of 0.1 Hz - 5 kHz (feedback loop off). It employs a pulse tube cryocooler (PTC) and a Joule-Thomson (JT) stage inducing only small temperature oscillations at the STM with amplitude below 1 mK. The challenge to combine an effective vibrational decoupling from the PTC with sufficient thermal conduction is tackled by a multipartite approach. We realize a minimal stiffness of the UHV bellows that connect the PTC and the STM chamber. Fine Copper wires mechanically decouple the PTC stages from cooling plates that carry the thermal shields, the JT stage and the STM. Soft springs decouple the STM from the JT stage. Finally, the STM body has an optimized conical shape and is made of the light and stiff material Shapal Hi MSoft such that a strong reduction of low frequency vibrations results for the tunnel junction. The voltage noise in the tunnel junction is 0.12 mV and an RF antenna close to the tunnel junction provides radio frequency excitations up to 40 GHz with amplitudes up to 10 mV.