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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 77: Poster Session VI: Scanning probe techniques: Method development I

O 77.2: Poster

Wednesday, March 3, 2021, 13:30–15:30, P

Strumming a Single Chemical Bond — •Alfred J. Weymouth, Elisabeth Riegel, Oliver Gretz, and Franz J. Giessibl — Universität Regensburg

Atomic force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy can image the internal structure of molecules adsorbed on surfaces. One reliable method is to terminate the tip with a nonreactive adsorbate, often a single CO molecule, and to collect data at a close distance where Pauli repulsion plays a strong role. Lateral force microscopy, in which the tip oscillates laterally, probes similar interactions but has the unique ability to pull the CO over a chemical bond, load it as a torsional spring, and release it as it snaps over with each oscillation cycle. This produces measurable energy dissipation. The dissipation has a characteristic decay length in the vertical direction of 4 pm, which is 13 times smaller than the decay length in typical STM or AFM experiments.

Physical Review Letters, 124, 196101 (2020)