Title of the project: Automated manipulation of single atoms using focused electron irradiation
Name of the VDSP student: Andreas Postl
Project supervised by: Toma Susi

- Graduate of Technical Physics at Graz University of Technology
- PhD student in the Susi research group (Nanomaterials and -technology)

As an experimentalist in Prof. Toma Susi’s research group, a large part of my work consists of operating our Nion UltraSTEM 100, a dedicated high-resolution STEM (scanning transmission electron microscope). Whilst I investigate and quantify electron irradiation effects on graphene regions in the proximity of individual dopant atoms, my dissertation project also involves quite a lot of programming. Coding tasks deal with having computer algorithms arrange substitutional heteroatoms in a graphene monolayer and the improvement of the workflow when analyzing image data in a computer-aided manner. The provided electron micrograph, showing a heavily bent graphene sheet with two incorporated silicon impurities (bright spots), illustrates numerous challenges concerning my research aims. Limited focal depth (ever-present in microscopy) and the difficulty of obtaining high-quality and atomically clean doped samples are only a couple of the unavoidable hurdles to overcome.

Susi group