The principle aim of the research in the LAIR is to build an understanding of important electronic and optoelectronic processes in nanoscale materials from the atomic scale up. We make extensive use of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques including scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) and at low temperatures (~5K and below). This clean, low-temperature environment allows the characterization of well defined systems, with sufficiently high energy resolution for most organic and inorganic nanoscale systems of interest, and with the level of stability required to achieve measurements on individual nanostructures.
Following are brief introductions to the techniques we use.