Introduction

Readings
Activities 1, 2 & 3, Exploring the Very Small, VQM Activities

Homework
Complete the questions in Activities 1 & 2, Exploring the Very Small, VQM Activities and submit them for grading.

Activities 1 & 2 of Exploring the Very Small introduce the idea of using electrons for probing and creating detailed images of nano-structures.

Figure 1: The letters of IBM were created by placing xenon atoms on a nickel surface.

These previous activities looked at several images taken using a scanning tunneling microscope. In order to create such images, information in the form of electrons, must be transferred from the sample surface to the probe tip.

In this activity, you will investigate the wave function for a tunneling electron and the parameters upon which tunneling depend.