Compact Telescoping Sample Manipulator for Ultra-High Vacuum

Scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs) are used to resolve the morphology and electronic structure of a material surface with atomic resolution. Key factors to achieve state of the art STM measurements are stability (i.e. decoupling from external noise sources), low temperatures (<10K) and ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions, which usually require a long sample transfer mechanism. However, such a long manipulator is a pendulum that acts as an antenna for acoustic and vibrational noise in the lab and couples the noise into the STM. Here we show the design, construction, and performance of a compact telescoping manipulator attached to an STM system. Our compact manipulator reduces noise coupling both by decreasing the oscillation amplitude and by increasing the resonant frequency and shifting it away from typical ambient noise frequencies (typically 10s of Hz) and resonances of the vibration isolation systems (typically 1 - 3 Hz). In addition, our telescoping arm would be a useful tool for any UHV precision measurement system in a confined space.