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Fujishima Akira reveals why conductive diamonds may be a diabetic's best friend DIAMONDS are high-value jewels due to their high transparency and high refractive index. In the world of industry, [...]

Second-harmonic generation coherent interferometry was applied to the characterization of the adsorbed layer of a hemicyanine derivative 4-[4-(dimethylamino)styryl]-1-methylpyridinium iodide (DSM) on a fused silica plate. It was clarified that the DSM molecules on the substrate were self-aligned with their methylpyridinium group facing towards the hydrophilic silica substrate.

C60thin films have been fabricated on MoS2surface by the molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) and their monolayer coverages on this substrate have been investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). STM study indicates that the C60molecules pack either in a square lattice with lattice parameter of 11±1 Å or a hexagonal close packed structure with lattice parameter of 10±1 Å. The AFM images show column like structures similar to the square lattice pattern of STM images. Both STM and AFM techniques have been used to make a comparative study of C60film grown on MoS2. The substrate lattice has also been imaged together with C60molecular contours by STM in order to determine the epitaxial nature of the film.

It was observed that scanning the surface of palladium (Pd) for imaging with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) caused the morphological change of the surface: The morphology of Pd was transformed from a rough surface to a flat one. This observation suggests that the surface was changed so as to reduce the surface energy. In the case of platinum, the morphology also changed to a certain degree. However, the change was not as drastic as compared with that of Pd. It is supposed that this morphological transformation was due to an electrostatic force (image force) between the STM tip and the metal surface.