Double Tips for In-Plane Polarized Near-Field Microscopy and Spectroscopy.

Near-field optical microscopy and spectroscopy provide high-resolution imaging below the diffraction limit, crucial in physics, chemistry, and biology for studying molecules, nanoparticles, and viruses. These techniques use a sharp metallic tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) to enhance incoming and scattered light by excited near-fields at the tip apex, leading to high sensitivity and a spatial resolution of a few nanometers. However, this restricts the near-field orientation to out-of-plane polarization, limiting optical polarization choices.

Deterministic Generation and Guided Motion of Magnetic Skyrmions by Focused He-Ion Irradiation.

Magnetic skyrmions are quasiparticles with nontrivial topology, envisioned to play a key role in next-generation data technology while simultaneously attracting fundamental research interest due to their emerging topological charge. In chiral magnetic multilayers, current-generated spin-orbit torques or ultrafast laser excitation can be used to nucleate isolated skyrmions on a picosecond time scale. Both methods, however, produce randomly arranged skyrmions, which inherently limits the precision on the location at which the skyrmions are nucleated.

The patterning toolbox FIB-o-mat: Exploiting the full potential of focused helium ions for nanofabrication.

Focused beams of helium ions are a powerful tool for high-fidelity machining with spatial precision below 5 nm. Achieving such a high patterning precision over large areas and for different materials in a reproducible manner, however, is not trivial. Here, we introduce the Python toolbox FIB-o-mat for automated pattern creation and optimization, providing full flexibility to accomplish demanding patterning tasks.

Tunable Graphene Phononic Crystal.

In the field of phononics, periodic patterning controls vibrations and thereby the flow of heat and sound in matter. Bandgaps arising in such phononic crystals (PnCs) realize low-dissipation vibrational modes and enable applications toward mechanical qubits, efficient waveguides, and state-of-the-art sensing. Here, we combine phononics and two-dimensional materials and explore tuning of PnCs via applied mechanical pressure.