Visible Light Emission from Atomic Scale Patterns Fabricated by the Scanning Tunneling Microscope

Abstract

Scanning tunneling microscope (STM) induced light emission from artificial atomic scale structures comprising silicon dangling bonds on hydrogen-terminated Si(001) surfaces has been mapped spatially and analyzed spectroscopically in the visible spectral range. The light emission is based on a novel mechanism involving optical transitions between a tip state and localized states on the sample surface. The wavelength of the photons can be changed by the bias voltage of the STM. The spatial resolution of the photon maps is as good as that of STM topographic images and the photons are emitted from a quasipoint source with a spatial extension similar to the size of a dangling bond.