Vibration-induced structures in scanning tunneling microscope light emission spectra of Ni(1 1 0)-streaky (1 × 2)-H

Abstract

We have measured the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) light emission spectra of Ni(1 1 0)-streaky (1 × 2) surfaces. When the tip was fixed over atomic hydrogen adsorbed on the surfaces, two types of vibration-induced structure were observed in the STM light emission spectra. One is the periodic fine structures that were already reported in our previous paper [Y. Uehara, S. Ushioda, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 (2004) 066102] and the other newly found in the present experiments is a stepwise structure that is located at the vibrational energy of hydrogen below the cutoff energy of the STM light emission. They are ascribed to different excitation mechanisms of the vibration in the STM light emission process; the periodic fine structures appear when the vibrating motion is directly excited by the electrons injected from the tip. Conversely, the stepwise structure is observed when it is excited by the electromagnetic fields confined in the tip-sample gap, i.e., by localized surface plasmons.