Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Downloads | Hilfe

O: Oberflächenphysik

O 6: Nanostrukturen (I)

O 6.4: Vortrag

Montag, 11. März 2002, 12:00–12:15, H45

Highs and lows of light emission in a scanning tunneling microscope : a golden story — •Thomas Maroutian, Germar Hoffmann, and Richard Berndt — IEAP, Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel

In a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) light emission is induced by the inelastic tunneling of electrons. On metallic surfaces the electromagnetic properties of the nano-cavity formed between tip and sample can thus be studied through fluorescence spectra. In particular the influence of the tip-sample geometry is readily observed on corrugated surfaces such as Au (110). Optical contrast linked to the corrugation has been previously reported on this system, but different mechanisms were proposed to explain it [1,2]. Here new measurements are presented, taking advantage of both spectral and spatial resolution for light emission in a 5 K STM [3]. The optical contrast is found to be consistent with a radiative decay of plasmon modes in the cavity excited by the inelastic tunneling current.

[1] R. Berndt et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 102 (1995)

[2] Y. Uehara et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2445 (1999)

[3] G. Hoffmann et al., to be published in Rev. Sci. Instr. (2002)