STM Electronics

AG Moeller University of Essen

M. Matena
25th May 2004
Contents
1 The dierent modules 1
1.1 The Signal-Ranger-Adapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Input Filter Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 The X/Y-Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 The App. Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5 The STM-Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.6 The HV-Amp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.7 The RTM VMOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.8 The InMod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Block diagrams 10
1
1 The dierent modules
This chapter describes the function of the dierent components used to connect
a scanning tunneling microscope to a signal ranger board (Signal Ranger SP2
SPM, SOFT DB). This description starts with the components that are directly
connected to the DSP board and that for dealing with the processing of the X-,
Y - and Z-signals to control the piezo.
1.1 The Signal-Ranger-Adapter
Figure 1: Signal Ranger Adapter
The Signal-Ranger-Adapter (Picture 1 on page 1) takes the signals from the
DSP board and adds the center of the scan X
offs
and the scan position X
in
.
The oset signal is sent through a low-pass lter of sixth order with a cut-o
frequency of 20 Hz and after that it is amplied with a factor of ve. The factor
of ve provides the right amplication of the working voltage of the DSP (2 V )
to the working voltage of the electronic (10 V ). The amplication factors for
the scan signals (X
in
, Y
in
, Z
in
) can be adjusted with the respective switches.
The modulation input Z
mod
is amplied with a factor
1
100
. This damping allows
the modulation of the Z-signal with an external lock-in providing a sinusoidal
output voltage with an amplitude in the order of several volts.
1
The separation of input and oset variables can be understood with the help
of the picture 2 on page 2.
Figure 2: Relative Coordinates
Introducing relative coordinates makes a high resolution scan possible. The
coordinates (X
offs
/Y
offs
) determine the center of the scanned section while the
section itself is described by (X
in
/Y
in
). So all bits being available by the DSP are
solely assigned to the scanned section so that an optimal resolution is granted.
In this case an optimal resolution means: 1 Bit is assigned to the least possible
deviation of voltage.
1.2 The Input Filter Module
The Input Filter Module (Picture 3 on page 3) provides low-pass lters for the
three Cartesian coordinates and the tunneling voltage. They smooth the signal
coming from the D/A-Converter. The cut-o frequencies are 100 Hz for the X-
and Y -coordinates and can be switched between 10 kHz and 20 kHz for the
Z-component as well as between 500 Hz and 5 kHz for the V -component. All
these lters are of sixth order.
A cut-o-frequency of 100 Hz is chosen for the X- and Y -components as a com-
promise: The given signal for these coordinates is a triangle signal which has of
course components of high frequencies in its Fourier series. On the other hand
the signal from the DSP has to be smoothed so that 100 Hz are chosen as a
sensible value which might only atten the triangle tip a little bit.
For the other signals (V and Z) higher cut-o frequencies have to be used because
2
Figure 3: Input Filter Module
a fast response is needed for the Z-component and it might also be interesting to
modulate both components.
1.3 The X/Y-Module
After the last module the X- and Y -components are seperated from the Z-component.
On the one hand the X/Y-Module (Picture 4 on page 4) deals with the X- and
Y -coordinates whereas the STM-Interface which is described in one of the next
sections handles the Z-coordinate.
The switch Gain X/Yprovides dierent gains for the X- and Y -components.
In position 0 the tip remains on the same place during the whole scan. This
might be important to detect mechanical and electrocinal variations of the STM:
If the tip of the STM is not moved in X- or Y -direction and neither the Z-
component nor the tunneling voltage is modulated the Z-component wont change.
On the other hand: If the Z-component changes under these conditions there
must be some kind of disturbance.
In contrast to the STM-Interface which is described in one of the following sec-
tions the amplication factors of this module only refer to the X/Y-Module. The
trimmer Gadj Y is used to adjust the proportion between the voltages in X-
and Y -direction so that unsymmetries of the piezo can be corrected. A short
3
Figure 4: X/Y-Module
comment to this unsymmetry: In general the piezo constants for X and Y are
dierent, i.e. the same voltage applied to the X- and Y -components will result in
dierent movements of the piezo in both directions. Of course, GXSM can handle
this, but the program only displays data points. So a scan which is displayed
as a square is in real coordinates a rectangle beacuse the distance between two
datapoints is dierent for X and Y . If the same piezo constants for the X- and
Y -components are realized by the Gadj Y GXSM will draw pictures without
distortion.
The limiter prevents the tip from jumping if the X- or Y -voltages are changed
too fast. This is useful to prevent a crash of the tip in case of a software or hard-
ware problem. The limiter is turned on by the switch Limit and its sensitivity
can be adjusted by the trimmers Lim. X and Lim. Y. Typical values for the
velocity of the Limiter are around 1
V
s
.
The main potentiometers are used to add an oset to the X- and Y -components
e.g. to correct the oset of the DSP or the scan position.
The outputs of this module are directly connected to the HV-Amp so that the
handling of the coordinates ends here and the next modules are merely important
for the processing of the Z-component.
4
1.4 The App. Control
Figure 5: App Control
The sparely equipped front panel of this module (Picture 5 on page 5) shows
that it is in an early state of development. It is planned in the near future to
provide a logarithmic calculus. Compared to the digital logarithmic calculus a
analog solution has one advantage: The digital version rst discretises the signal
and then takes the logarithm so that errors in ranges of small values are high
compared to those ones in ranges of high values. So the noise of the signal
inevitably increases. To prevent this it is useful to discretise the signal after the
logarithmic calculus. This is provided by the analog solution.
Until now the App. Control is used to control an important feature of the
STM-Interface. The input is connected to the InMod (which provides the elec-
tronics with the tunneling current). The potentiometer is used to set a threshold
and the output is set to 5 V if the input i.e. the tunneling current reaches this
threshold. The output is connected to the STM-Interface (input Speed Con-
trol) to retard the speed of the approaching tip.
1.5 The STM-Interface
The STM-Interface (Picture 6 on page 6) is responsable for the control of the ap-
proach of the tip. The necessary procedure to guarantee a safe approach is similar
to the description of the relative coordinates used by the Signal Ranger Adapter
5
Figure 6: STM-Interface
(Picture 7): To achieve the optimum resolution in Z-dircetion the DSP only con-
trols a small part of the total Z-range. Depending on the polarity of the DSP
voltage the electronics will move the zero point (the whole range controlled by
the DSP is moved too) to the corresponding direction which is realized by sim-
ply integrating the DSP signal and adding this oset to the DSP voltage. The
speed of this movement is always porportional to the amplitude of the DSP and it
is adjusted by the potentiometer called Speed. As already mentioned the input
Speed Control is connected to the App. Control and if this input recognises
the 5 V the speed is lowered to prevent the tip from crashing into the surface.
The purpose of this feature:
As shown in gure 7 the DSP voltage shall be negative. So the STM-Interface
moves the zero point of the DSP to the surface. If a tunneling current is detected
the voltage of the DSP turns to zero. But the electronics moves the zero point
of the DSP further to the surface because it integrates the signal of the DSP.
So the tunneling current exceeds the threshold and the DSP voltage turns ac-
cording to gure 7 to positive values. Because of that the electronics will then
correct the zero point of the DSP upwards until the tunneling current falls below
the threshold and the process is repeated. The consequence: The DSP and the
STM-Interface work in opposite directions. To solve this problem the speed of
the electronics is lowered if a tunneling current is detected.
6
Figure 7: Z-control of the STM-Interface
If the piezo moves to its limits without reaching a sucient tunneling current
the output MSCU will provide a signal for the piezo engine. The approach can
be initiated either by pressing the so called button or by setting the switch to
App. If this switch is set to Reset the tip is retracted from the probe.
Another interesting feature called tip guard which is activated by a jumper
(default: inactive) on the board uses the approach control during the scanning
process to prevent the tip from crashing. Example: The automatic control is
turned o. In this case the tip can only be moved in the small range the DSP
controls. A tilted sample might cause the DSP operating at its limits so that the
tip cannot be retracted anymore. With tip guard enabled the electronic retracts
the whole range controlled by the DSP i.e. it adds an oset to the DSP voltage.
If tip guard is disabled and the switch is set to Hold the STM-Interface has
only on task: It takes the Z-coordinate from the input connected to Z-PC and
forwards it to the output called HVAmp after having added the signal from Z-
Mod which is used to modulate the Z-component. The input Z-Mod is damped
by a factor of 100.
The output Z-Buer provides the same signal as the output HVAmp. So it
can be used to monitor the Z-position with an oscilloscope.
The switch Z-Factor has three dierent positions. As an example: Position
1:10 provides a total signal amplication of 10. In this case total amplica-
tion means: The amplication of this module multiplied by the amplication
of the HV-Amp. Let the amplication factor of the HV-Amp be 15. So the
STM-Interface itself only provides an amplication of
10
15
.
7
1.6 The HV-Amp
Figure 8: HV-Amp
The HV-Amp (Picture 8 on page 8) receives the signals for the three Carte-
sian coordinates and ampies them to be able to manage the piezo. The nal
amplication factor is 15.
Now the modules which are necessary to process the X-, Y - and Z-components
are specied and the last two modules describe the way back from the STM to
the DSP board.
1.7 The RTM VMOD
The RTM VMOD (Picture 9 on page 9) has two voltage sources. On the one
hand it provides a voltage which can be adjusted by the potentiometer I
s
between
10 V and +10 V . The output for this voltage is called I
s,out
. Originally it
provided a setpoint for an analog control loop but at the moment the control is
done by GXSM so that this output is used as a variable voltage source.
On the other hand this module controls the tunneling voltage. It adds the
signals of the inputs U
di,in
and U
mod,in
. To this sum a voltage can be added
which is adjusted by the three remainig controllers. The output V
out
provides
the sum of all these voltages.
The potentiometer allows to apply this voltage between 0 V and the value
8
Figure 9: RTM VMOD
which is dened by the switch Range. The other switch changes the polarity
of the voltage. Another thing should be mentioned here: The dierent settings
of the switch Range causes dierent attenuations for the input U
mod,in
: The
setting 0.1 causes the attenuation factor 10000, 10 the factor 100 and 1 the factor
1000.
The U
di,in
inputs can be used to connect the DSP board. The input U
mod,in
is
used to connect a LockIn amplier in order to measure
dI
dU
.
Another interesting feature is V
comp,out
. The wire providing the tunneling
voltage which is not perfectly smoothed for the STM induces an electric eld
on the surface which can aect the tunneling current and thus the measurement.
Because of that the V
comp,out
is connected to another wire being positioned
parallel to the primarily mentioned one. V
comp,out
then provides a potential
being out of phase to the rst one which has to compensate the electric eld on
the surface caused by the tunneling voltage. V
comp,out
can be adjusted by the
trimmer V. The phase shift is xed to 180

.
1.8 The InMod
The InMod (Picture 10 on page 10) gets the tunneling current from the IV-converter
of the STM input IVC-In. The special connector on the front panel also provides
the power supply for the IVC whereas V-in is solely an input which can be used
for another IVC. The signal of the IVC is then put through dierent low-pass
9
lters and forwarded to the dierent connectors on the lower side of the front
panel. For STM a cut-o frequency of 10 kHz is generally recommended.
Figure 10: InMod
2 Block diagrams
The rst picture (gure 11) shows how the signal is processed on its way towards
the STM. To prevent a rather confusing picture the dierent inputs and outputs
(e.g. X
in
, X
os
, ...) are symbolized by one input or output. As mentioned in
the previous chapter the processing of the X- and Y -components is made by the
X/Y-Module whereas the Z-component is connected to the STM-Interface.
The STM-Interface also needs in order to realize the approach of the tip
informations about the tunneling current provided by the App. Control which
is connected to the InMod. The output of 5 kHz is usually appropiate for
an adequate control of the App. Control. Picture 12 shows this part of the
electronic.
This picture also shows the connection of the RTM VMOD providing the
tunneling voltage for the STM. The output of 10 kHz of the InMod is directly
connected to the DSP.
10
Figure 11: Block diagram: direction from the DSP to the STM
Figure 12: Block diagram: direction from the STM to the DSP
11