Elsevier

Surface Science

Volume 643, January 2016, Pages 13-17
Surface Science

DIET at the nanoscale

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.susc.2015.07.010Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We review DIET (Dynamics at surfaces Induced by Electronic Transitions) processes.

  • We review DIET at the nanoscale with the STM.

  • We discuss resonant and radiant Inelastic Electron Tunneling (IET) with the STM.

Abstract

We review the long evolution of DIET (Dynamics at surfaces Induced by Electronic Transitions) that began in the 1960s when Menzel, Gomer and Redhead proposed their famous stimulated desorption model. DIET entered the “nanoscale” in the 1990s when researchers at Bell Labs and IBM realized that the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) could be used as an atomic size source of electrons to electronically excite individual atoms and molecules on surfaces. Resonant and radiant Inelastic Electron Tunneling (IET) using the STM have considerably enlarged the range of applications of DIET. Nowadays, “DIET at the nanoscale” covers a broad range of phenomena at the atomic-scale. This includes molecular dynamics (dissociation, desorption, isomerization, displacement, chemical reactions), vibrational spectroscopy and dynamics, spin spectroscopy and manipulation, luminescence spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and plasmonics. Future trends of DIET at the nanoscale offer exciting prospects for new methods to control light and matter at the nanoscale.

Introduction

Initiating the so-called DIET (desorption induced by electronic transitions) studies is certainly one of the major achievements of Dietrich Menzel. The investigation of the desorption of adsorbed molecules from surfaces induced by electronic excitation began in the early 1960s [1], [2]. At that time, these studies were motivated mainly by the need to improve the ion gauge technology for measuring ultra-high vacuum pressures. The stimulated desorption model proposed by Menzel, Gomer and Redhead [1], [2] was the starting point of all DIET studies [3], [4], and their impact has grown continuously over the past 50 years. Why have the MGR (Menzel, Gomer, Redhead) model and the ensuing DIET studies been so successful over the years? The fundamental reason is that the MGR model and DIET are the foundation of all surface science studies involving the excited states of adsorbates. They offer a generic understanding [5] of all kinds of atomic or molecular dynamic processes at surfaces (desorption, diffusion, dissociation, isomerization, chemical reactions, etc.) stimulated by synchrotron radiation [6], electron impact [7], ion impact [8], and lasers [9].

Section snippets

DIET at the nanoscale

In April 1990, while one of us (G.D.) was spending a month visiting Menzel's laboratory at the T.U.M. (Technical University of Munich), D.M. Eigler at IBM published his famous article “Writing with atoms” [10]. This was the brilliant demonstration that the tip of an STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope) could be used to move individual atoms and molecules in a controlled manner laterally across a surface. However, it should be remembered that a few years before, in 1987, it had been demonstrated

Inelastic electron tunneling

Inelastic electron tunneling (IET) is the key excitation mechanism of DIET at the nanoscale. Most of the electrons that tunnel between the STM tip and the surface do so elastically without losing any energy. However, there is a fraction of the electrons which tunnel inelastically by releasing a part of their energy into the surface or the adsorbate on the surface. This released energy can be used to activate DIET at the nanoscale.

Two distinct inelastic IET processes can be distinguished,

Future trends of DIET at the nanoscale

DIET at the nanoscale is concerned with the various processes of “Dynamics at surfaces Induced by Electronic Transitions”. Together, resonant and radiant IET with the STM enable a very broad range of phenomena at the atomic-scale to be investigated. These include molecular dynamics (dissociation, desorption, isomerization [48], displacement, chemical reactions), vibrational spectroscopy and dynamics, spin spectroscopy and manipulation, luminescence spectroscopy and very recently Raman

Acknowledgments

We thank our former and present Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers who have contributed to the success of this research work, Shuiyan Cao, Heejun Yang, Mathieu Lastapis, Amandine Bellec, Guillaume Baffou, Marta Martin, Franck Rose, Laetitia Soukiassian, Marion Cranney, Franco Chiaravalloti, Tao Wang, Yang Zhang, and Benoît Rogez. This work is also the result of fruitful collaborations with Genevieve Comtet, Marie-Laure Bocquet, Lucette Hellner, Philippe Sonnet, Phaedon Avouris, Robert

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