New blog post

Author: srschofield

_posts/2026-02-01-Scienta-Omicron-ROTM.md

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+---
+title: "Our Work Recognised as Scienta Omicron's Result of the Month"
+description: "Our STM measurements of anisotropic acceptor wave functions in silicon are recognised as Scienta Omicron’s Result of the Month for February 2026."
+tags: [news, research, STM, silicon, dopants, Omicron]
+image: /images/blog/2026/2026-02-01-Scienta-Omicron-ROTM-teaser.jpg
+author: steven-schofield
+---
+
+This month our work was recognised by Scienta Omicron as their *Result of the Month* for February 2026. Rather than revisiting the technical details of the study itself, I want to use this post to reflect on a longer story: nearly three decades of working with Omicron STM instruments, and a relationship with these systems that has quietly shaped much of my research career.
+
+The work highlighted in the current *Result of the Month* focuses on our STM measurements of **anisotropic acceptor wave functions in silicon**, published in [*Nano Letters* **2025**, *25*, 13996](https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c02675). These measurements show how band structure and symmetry are directly encoded in real-space images of individual dopant states. The result has already featured on this blog twice, following its selection for a *PNAS Journal Club* article and its appearance on the cover of *Nano Letters*. The two previous blog posts are here:
+
+- [PNAS Journal Club coverage](/2025/09/15/PNAS-coverage/)
+- [Nano Letters cover feature](/2025/09/24/NanoLetter-Cover/)
+
+## A personal perspective
+
+My first encounter with Omicron STM systems dates back to 1998, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Newcastle in Australia. My fourth-year research project was computational, focusing on the energetics of steps on the Si(001) surface ([published here: *Phys. Rev. B* **62**, 10199 (2000)](https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.62.10199)). At the same time, the department had recently acquired an Omicron variable-temperature STM. Although my own project did not involve STM directly, early exposure to that instrument would later prove influential. That experience shaped the direction of my PhD at the University of New South Wales, where my supervisor, Bob Clark, had also recently installed an Omicron VT-STM.
+
+Since then, Omicron instruments have been a constant presence: through my graduate work, time spent in the Scanning Probe Microscopy Laboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and for almost two decades now, here at UCL. Along the way, many students and postdocs in the group have learned STM on these systems, which still form the backbone of our research.
+
+<figure class="blog-image">
+  <img src="{{ '/images/blog/2026/2026-02-01-Scienta-Omicron-ROTM-teaser.jpg' | relative_url }}" alt="">
+  <figcaption>Our Scienta Omicron low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscope — the workhorse instrument of the group.</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+## Looking back: an earlier Result of the Month
+
+This is not the first time our work with Omicron systems has been recognised in this way. In 2013, our research was also featured as *Result of the Month* for a study centred on the deliberate fabrication and imaging of artificial quantum states formed from coupled dangling bonds on hydrogen-terminated Si(001), published in [*Nature Communications* **4**, 1649 (2013)](https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2679). That earlier work focused on engineering *designer* quantum states at the surface. The current study, by contrast, probes the intrinsic quantum structure of individual dopants buried within the silicon lattice.
+
+The physics is different, but the underlying strengths are the same: atomic-scale control and the ability to interrogate quantum defect states. Both studies relied on Omicron low-temperature STM systems and are connected by a shared experimental philosophy.
+
+<figure class="blog-image">
+  <img src="{{ '/images/blog/2026/2026-02-01-Scienta-Omicron-ROTM.jpg' | relative_url }}" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+  STM topographs of five- and six-member dangling-bond chains, deterministically fabricated on a Si(001) surface. Images acquired under different tunnelling conditions reveal distinct superpositions of quantum states arising from bias-dependent tip-induced band bending. Line profiles and corresponding theoretical descriptions are also shown.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+We’re grateful that Scienta Omicron has chosen to highlight our research once more, and we’re looking forward to many exciting scientific discoveries yet to come.