Imaging surfaces using low energy neutral atom scattering is a relatively recent development in the field of microscopy. In this work we demonstrate that this technique is sensitive enough to distinguish films as thin as a single monolayer from the underlying substrate. Using collimated beams of He and Kr atoms as an incident probe on MoS2 films grown on SiO2/Si substrate, we observe systematic changes in the scattered atom flux which allows us to map the thin MoS2 films. Measurements carried out by varying incidence energy using both He and Kr provides insights into the details of atom-surface collision dynamics and its role in contrast generation.
@article{arxiv.2105.09777,
title = {Neutral atom scattering based mapping of atomically thin layers},
author = {Geetika Bhardwaj and Krishna Rani Sahoo and Rahul Sharma and Parswa Nath and Pranav R. Shirhatti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.09777},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
17 pages, 14 figures (main text + appendix). Changes from previous version: The discussion section has been updated to account for different possible outcomes of He scattering with surfaces