Simplified feedback control system for scanning tunneling microscopy.

A Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) is one of the most important scanning probe tools available to study and manipulate matter at the nanoscale. In a STM, a tip is scanned on top of a surface with a separation of a few Å. Often, the tunneling current between the tip and the sample is maintained constant by modifying the distance between the tip apex and the surface through a feedback mechanism acting on a piezoelectric transducer.

A chemometric approach for determining the reaction quantum yields in consecutive photochemical processes.

A chemometric procedure to deal with spectroscopically monitored processes involving photochemical steps is fully described. The methodology makes it possible to work with reactions that involve several components with unknown (and eventually overlapping) spectra and provides a tool for the simultaneous determination of both the quantum yields of the reaction and the spectra of all the species present in a multi-step photochemical process. As a benchmark, we apply these ideas to extract the quantum yields of photodetachment of coordinated ligands employing data recorded over the course of the decomposition of [Ru(tpm)(bpy)(CHCN)] and cis-[Ru(bpy)(CHCN)] under stationary photolysis conditions.