Nanometer-scale regular grooves and ridges created with scanning tunnelling microscope

The scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) has been employed to fabricate grooves by extracting Si atoms out of the Si(111)-7×7 surface and deposit the Si atoms back onto the Si(111)-7×7 surface at room temperature. The deposited Si atoms can form a straight ridge under controlled conditions. The width of the ridge can be controlled better than 2 nm. Ridges can only be formed after the tip extracts enough atoms out of the Si(111)-7×7 surface. If the tip is clean, no atoms will be deposited from the tip under the depositing conditions. This suggests that the deposited atoms are silicon atoms extracted out of the Si(111)-7×7 surface. The deposition mechanism is discussed.