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Small atomic objects such as molecules and atomic clusters play a key role in bottom up approaches to tailor properties of matter and constitute fundamental building blocks for the synthesis of new advanced materials. Due to quantum confinement effects, small clusters with a countable number of atoms show entirely new physical phenomena without equivalent in bulk materials [1]. The strong size dependence of the properties of atomic clusters opens up a so-called third dimension for all elements of the periodic table [2]. This represents a tremendous space of exploration with important interdisciplinary potential. For clusters study we propose a novel fabrication method to create the first SET based on a single cluster with a countable and controllable number of atoms (Fig. 1). The main motivation to create such device is to investigate intrinsic properties of size selected clusters, in particular to extract their entire discrete electronic energy level spectrum. For the purpose of SET tailoring the electromigration technique was improved in means of controllability and reproducibility. The developed technique was also successfully applied to study the superconducting properties of nanosized aluminium junctions [3].
[1] J. A. Alonso, Structure and Properties of Atomic Nanoclusters. Imperial College Press, 2005. [2] A. W. Castleman and S. N. Khanna, “Clusters, Superatoms, and Building Blocks of New Materials.,” J. Phys. Chem. C, vol. 113, no. 7, pp. 2664–2675, Feb. 2009. [3] X. D. A. Baumans, D. Cerbu, O.-A. Adami, V. S. Zharinov, N. Verellen, G. Papari, J. E. Scheerder, G. Zhang, V. V Moshchalkov, A. V Silhanek, and J. Van de Vondel, “Thermal and quantum depletion of superconductivity in narrow junctions created by controlled electromigration.,” Nat. Commun., vol. 7, p. 10560, Jan. 2016.
