Symmetry Selection Rules for Vibrationally Inelastic Tunneling

Nicolas Lorente (1) , M. Persson (1) , L. J. Lauhon (2) , W. Ho (2)

1 Department of Applied Physics [Gothenburg]
2 Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics and Cornell Center for Materials Research

A combined experimental and theoretical study is presented for the C-D stretch mode excitation of acetylene isotopes, C2HD and C2D2, on Cu(100) via inelastic electron tunneling (IET) in a scanning tunneling microscope junction. The calculated IET images using density functional theory show that the measured signal from C2D2 derives from the antisymmetric stretch mode. Selection rules are derived and involve the constraint imposed by the IET image on the symmetry characters of the vibrational mode and the adsorbate-induced electron states at the Fermi level.

Domaines: Autre [cond-mat.other]

Nicolas Lorente, M. Persson, L. J. Lauhon, W. Ho. Symmetry Selection Rules for Vibrationally Inelastic Tunneling. Physical Review Letters, 2001, 86, pp.2593. ⟨hal-00102418⟩