2023/06/08 by Shin-Ming Lu, Lu, Shin-Ming, Ho-Hsiang Chang +9
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #81-02 #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2306.04916
openalex publication_date 2023/06/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this study, we discovered that the energy gap above the vacuum level in the projected bulk band structure of Ag(100) prevents electrons in the first-order field emission resonance (FER) from inducing the surface plasmons. This mechanism allows light emission from FER to reveal characteristics of triplet states and Auger-type excitation resulting from two-electron tunneling in FER. According to optical spectra, surface plasmons can be induced by electrons in the zeroth-order FER. However, corresponding radiative decay can also trigger Auger-type excitation, whose energy state is influenced by the sharpness-dependent image potential acting on the scanning tunneling microscope tip.