Transportation of molecules with a scanning tunneling microscope

Transportation of mass molecules from one metal surface to another has been achieved with scanning tunneling microscope tip at room temperature. With scanning monolayer of tetracene on Ag(110) surface, the molecules were removed gradually, leaving ordered stripes on the Ag surface; the ordered stripes are unidirectional nanoscopic molecular rows with a width of about 1.4 nm. Scanning the clean Ru(10 < over bar > 1 </over bar > 0) sample with the tip, previously adsorbed the tetracene molecules, caused an appearance of the molecules on the Ru surface. Short molecular strips with different widths from 4 to 20 nm were drawn on the Ru surface by a molecule-loaded W tip. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.