Abstract
Scanning tunneling microscope observations reveal for the first time the discrete energy spectrum of a truly 1D conductor, providing a crucial tool for testing the limits of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory that describes interacting electrons.
Highlights
While long thought to remain a theorist’s dream [1,2], a few realizations of one-dimensional metals suitable for the investigation of low-energy excitations as described by the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) theory [1,2,3] are available
Their experimental detection is primarily conducted by transport and tunneling transport measurements [4,6,7,8], angle-resolved photoemission electron spectroscopy (ARPES) [5,9,11,12,14,19], and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) [10,12,19]
The difficulties in pinpointing TLL behavior, in self-assembled systems, become apparent by considering the case of self-organized Au wires on Ge(001): From the 1D appearance of the Au adatom chains and power-law scaling of the density of states observed by STM and ARPES, TLL behavior was concluded [12]
Summary
While long thought to remain a theorist’s dream [1,2], a few realizations of one-dimensional metals suitable for the investigation of low-energy excitations as described by the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) theory [1,2,3] are available. In subsequent work [13,17,18] TLL behavior was questioned and even excluded; e.g., the 1D character of the system was rejected [13,17] and the suppression of the density of states was linked to disorder [17] These remarks make plain that, in order to gain highquality data enabling advancement of theory, well-defined 1D systems and new tools to identify TLL behavior are highly desirable. By making 1D wires well isolated from the environment, of high perfection and well-defined length, we are able to observe spincharge separation in real space through the unique local spectroscopic capabilities of low-temperature STM and STS This technique can directly probe the probability distribution and energy of discrete TLL excitations in a 1D box. The interpretation of our data is based on the work of Fabrizio and Gogolin [31] as well as Anfuso and Eggert [32], who demonstrated that for a TLL in a box the local distribution of the single-particle spectral weight— determining the probability to inject or extract an electron in a tunneling experiment—visualizes its fundamental properties
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