Achieving low noise in scanning tunneling spectroscopy

Abstract

Scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S) is a powerful experimental tool to understand the electronic structure of materials at the atomic scale, with energy resolution down to the microelectronvolt range. Such resolution requires a low-vibration laboratory, low-noise electronics, and a cryogenic environment. Here, we present a thorough enumeration and analysis of various noise sources and their contributions to the noise floor of STM/S measurements. We provide a comprehensive recipe and an interactive python notebook to input and evaluate noise data, and to formulate a custom step-by-step approach for optimizing the signal-to-noise ratio in STM/S measurements.