Abstract:

Research complex on the basis of the point-contact spectrometer is a multifunctional set-up, which meets the most stringent requirements for scientific equipment put forward by the leading laboratories from all over the world. The complex is designed for solving a wide spectrum of scientific and technical tasks, including:

● investigation of solid state matter by Yanson point-contact spectroscopy;

● creation and study of all types of point-contact nanosensors, including atom-sized ones;

● determination of electro-physical parameters of conductive nano- and meso-objects;

● revealing and investiging nanoclusters of unknown phases and guest compounds in the host matrix;

● study of a wide variety of new prospective materials’ and composites’ properties on atomic-scale level including conductance quantization, spin polarization,

  quantum shell effect, electrochemical switchover effect, electron-phonon interaction, superconducting energy gap, dimension effects, phase transitions, etc.

 

Description:

Research complex includes a cryogenic system, a vacuum system, devices for creation of nanosized point contacts and point-contact nanosensors, an automated point-contact spectrometer, an original software package.

Technical characteristics:

Temperature range: 1.5 – 300K;

Sensitivity: 1*10–9 V;

Minimal point contact dimension: 1Å

 

Application area:

Application area of the complex includes:

● point-contact nanosensors with the highest performance for monitoring gases and liquid media;

● development of noninvasive diagnostics in medicine based on breath analysis;

● various areas of modern nanoelectronics and materials science in which investigations of new promising materials and development of their applications are

  carried out. Among those materials are carbon nanotubes, solid state systems containing clusters (magnetic, superconducting, etc.) in a conductive matrix,

  organic conductors and polymers, layered conductive and magnetic materials, other emerging compounds and composites which demonstrate prospective

  properties at the meso- and nanoscale levels.

 

Innovative aspects:

● point-contact nanosensors are a new type of modern transducers surpassing other existing nanosensors all over the world;

● a point-contact sensor multistructure is a basis for innovative technology and the new advanced method of noninvasive diagnostics of Helicobacter pylori

  virulent strains in the real-time mode;

● multichannel design;

● unique original devices for creation of nanosized point contacts and point-contact nanosensors;

● possibility of rapidly reaching any temperature in the range of 1.5-300K inside the sample under investigation by both heating and cooling it with no

  cryogenic liquid lost;

● original software for obtaining and analyzing results.

 

Main advantages:

● possibility of creating point-contact nanosensors which surpass the existing analogs;

● possibility of developing innovative methods of noninvasive medical diagnostics in the real-time mode;

● high automation of the investigation process, simultaneous registration and record of several characteristics of the object under investigation, accelerated

  record of the point contact characteristics;

● probing the surface and the volume of materials, detecting and recording nano-objects whose physical properties differ from those of the conductive matrix

  material (with nanocluster concentration in the host matrix volume amounting to 10-7 and smaller values).

 

Key words:

Nanotechnology, point-contact sensors, Yanson point-contact spectroscopy, breath analysis, noninvasive medical diagnoses, functional materials.