Spatial mapping of screened electrostatic potential and superconductivity by scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy

By using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S), we can make images of various physical properties in nanometer-scale spatial resolutions. Here, I demonstrate imaging of two electron-correlated subjects; screening and superconductivity by STM/S. The electrostatic potential around a charge is described with the Coulomb potential. When the charge is located in a metal, the potential is modified because of the free electrons in the host. The potential modification, called screening, is one of the fundamental phenomena in the condensed matter physics. Using low-temperature STM we have developed a method to measure electrostatic potential in high spatial and energy resolutions, and observed the potential around external charges screened by two-dimensional surface electronic states. Characteristic potential decay and the Friedel oscillation were clearly observed around the charges [1]. Superconductivity of nano-size materials, whose dimensions are comparable with the coherence length, is quite different from their bulk. We investigated superconductivity of ultra-thin Pb islands by directly measuring the superconducting gaps using STM. The obtained tunneling spectra exhibit a variation of zero bias conductance (ZBC) with a magnetic field, and spatial mappings of ZBC revealed the vortex formation [2]. Size dependence of the vortex formation will be discussed at the presentation.