Vibrationally resolved fluorescence excited with submolecular precision

X-ray Diffraction Study of the Ultrathin Al 2 O 3 Layer on NiAl(110)

Ultrathin Al2O3 layers on alloys are used as templates for model catalysts, tunneling barriers in electronic devices, or corrosion-resistant layers. The complex atomic structure of well-ordered alumina overlayers on NiAl110 was solved by surface x-ray diffraction. The oxide layer is composed of a double layer of strongly distorted hexagonal oxygen ions that hosts aluminum ions on both octahedral and tetrahedral sites with equal probability. The alumina overlayer exhibits a domain structure that can be related to characteristic growth defects and is generated during the growth of a hexagonally ordered overlayer (Al2O3) on a body-centered cubic (110) substrate (NiAl).

Vibrationally resolved fluorescence from organic molecules near metal surfaces in a scanning tunneling microscope

Intrinsic molecular fluorescence from porphyrin molecules on Au(100) has been realized by using a nanoscale multimonolayer decoupling approach with nanoprobe excitation in the tunneling regime. The molecular origin of luminescence is established by the observed well-defined vibrationally resolved fluorescence spectra. The molecules fluoresce at low "turn-on" voltages for both bias polarities, suggesting an excitation mechanism via hot electron injection from either tip or substrate. The excited molecules decay radiatively through Franck-Condon pi(*)-pi transitions.

Vibration of H atomic chains on Ni(110) measured by scanning tunneling microscope light emission spectroscopy

We have measured the visible light spectrum emitted by hydrogen atoms adsorbed on an Ni(110) surface, excited by the tunneling current from the scanning tunneling microscope. The spectrum contains periodic fine structures, whose period corresponds to the vertical vibrational energy of the adsorbed H atom. This energy showed the expected isotope shift when H was replaced by deuterium, and further it depended on the H-atom chain length.

Atomic engineering of photon emission with a scanning tunneling microscope

We present measurements of photon emission from individual several-atom silver chains on the NiAl(110) surface, excited by tunneling electrons in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The chains were assembled by manipulating single silver atoms on the NiAl(110) surface with the STM. The photon energy of this emission can be tuned by appending a single atom to the chain. These changes in photon emission result from changes in the electronic structure of the silver chain, each electronic state inside the chain being associated with a distinct channel of emission.