Hubertus Marbach

 

Research focus

The generation and investigation of nanostructures on surfaces is in the center of my current research activities. In my working group we follow different routes to fabricate tailor-made nanoscaled structures. The first (bottom-up) approach is based on the self-assembly of molecules or atoms on surfaces. In this context the geometric and electronic structure of porphyrin derivatives as prototype examples for functional molecules has been intensively studied on different substrates. In our second  (top-down) approach  highly focused electron beam is used to locally dissociate adsorbed precursor molecules (electron beam induced deposition, EBID) or to directly modify the properties of the substrate (electron beam induced surface activation, EBISA) with lithographical control. For both projects we target the understanding of the fundamental physical and chemical processes on an atomic level based on microscopic and spectromicroscopic investigations. Our main methods are scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, local Auger electron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy in an ultra high vacuum environment.