Scanning tunneling microscope-based break-junction technique - A tutorial

Over the past two decades, molecular electronics has made significant progress toward discovering nanoscale analogues of conventional electronic components, largely enabled by the development of the scanning tunneling microscope-based break-junction (STM-BJ) technique. The STM-BJ technique enables precise and highly reproducible measurement of a molecule’s electronic transport properties, making it a powerful technique to explore physiochemical and electrochemical phenomena that are otherwise difficult to access. It has gained substantial popularity in the past 20 years, with experiments becoming increasingly diverse and sophisticated. Despite the wealth of literature, an accessible, practical guide to performing STM-BJ experiments and interpreting the data is largely absent. This tutorial includes a brief background into the development of STM-BJ measurements, followed by detailed explanations of instrumentation, data collection, statistical analysis, variations on standard experiments, and some troubleshooting methods. It is aimed at researchers looking to begin or improve STM-BJ studies in their laboratories, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers learning the technique, and readers seeking to critically evaluate the growing body of STM-BJ literature.