The effect of the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope, upon the atomic motion of Ag on (110) surfaces, was investigated at 50 and 295K. It was found that, at 50K, the tip could move single Ag atoms preferentially along [11¯0] via an attractive interaction. At 295K, the tip could displace monatomic steps over distances which were as large as several tens of nm. The structures which were created decayed over a time-scale of minutes. In contrast to current assumptions, appreciable tip-induced disturbances of the equilibrium shape of steps were observed even at sub-nA tunnelling contents.

J.Li, R.Berndt, W.D.Schneider: Physical Review Letters, 1996, 76[11], 1888-91