A new method is introduced to study electron transport on the mesoscopic scale. A scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) tip is used both to form a point-contact potential probe to a thin film and to affect scattering centres in its vicinity. We detect abrupt changes in the voltage with this probe as a function of both tip position and tip-sample voltage. These changes could be interpreted as due to spatial shifts of scattering centres in the film surface.

The paper describes the use of an in-situ microscopy technique, which combines transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with scanning probe microscopy (SPM), to investigate the electrical and mechanical properties of individual silicon and germanium nanowires. Additionally, the formation of ordered arrays of size-monodisperse silicon and germanium nanowires within mesoporous silica powders and thin films using a supercritical fluid inclusion phase technique is described. In particular, we demonstrate ultra high-density arrays of germanium nanowires, up to 2 x 10(12) wires per square centimetre. These matric embedded nano-composite materials display unique optical properties such as intense room temperature ultraviolet and visible photoluminescence.

Nanoscale gold contacts were investigated both experimentally and theoretically. Simulations of in situ processes in a new combined TEM-AFM microscope were performed by molecular dynamics and theoretical mechanics methods. Atomistic transformations of gold nanometer-sized wires (nanowires) between Au-probe and Au-surface were studied in processes both of loading-unloading and in the normal, lateral, diagonal and zigzag directions of the probe motion. Molecular dynamics was used for studies of "adhesion avalanche", shear and strain deformations. Theoretical mechanics was used for studies of jump-to-contact and jump-off-contact phenomena. Reorientations from (100) to (111) planes with formation of extended zigzag, vacancy cavities, a double-neck creation and a slip along the (110) plane with formation of twins and steps were observed. Deformation mechanisms were shown to depend on schemes of motions and on the ratio between the relative velocity of the probe and surface motion and the velocity of the defect relaxation.