The primary goals of this project are to design and fabricate a custom Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (STM). This STM will be a part of the Ultrafast Microscopy and Magnetism Laboratory and will be used to study sub-picosecond electronic and magnetic dynamics with atomic resolution. The design goals of the STM are to have high vibrational stability, low thermal drift, non-magnetic components in the STM head, and optical access to the tunnelling junction for coupling to THz light. The project has spanned multiple complete design and iterative prototyping cycles for the STM head design initially based on the Pan design. The primary parameters for the STM head design were to minimize mass while preserving rigidity and maximize the first resonant mode frequency. All the components were designed using the Computer-Aided Design software (CAD) Autodesk Inventor and tested for rigidity and resonant modes using Autodesk NASTRAN, a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software. The tested prototypes were initially 3D printed and then milled out of Aluminum 6061 using Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines for the final parts.

The final aluminum STM head prototype has been designed, fabricated, and assembled. The lowest calculated resonant frequency of the head is 1.12 kHz. The STM head was tested for coarse motion and failed to produce sufficient displacement. The tests with the aluminum STM head led to a revised design for the 3D-printed titanium STM head and have guided the design methods for future designs that make even more use of 3D printing. The titanium STM head is designed and fabricated and is waiting to be assembled and tested.