WG3: Chemical control using scannng tunnelling microscopyAbstractNew capabilities of atomic-scale imaging, analysis, and manipulation are revolutionizing scientific approaches in both material and life sciences. In particular the technique of Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) has deepened our understanding of material surfaces by providing us, for the first time, with atomic resolution spatial images. For many years STMs lacked chemical specificity, requiring complementary spectroscopic tools to identify the chemical species being imaged. However, recently STM-IETS (Inelastic Electron Tunneling Spectroscopy) has been developed to measure the vibrational spectrum of a single molecule allowing STMs to be used as a tool for chemical analysis of single molecules. Our ability to fashion structures and control chemical processes at the fundamental level using electronic excitations has been made possible by combining STM with an understanding of the dynamics of electron-molecule interactions. Electronic induced cleavage of selected bonds of the adsorbed molecule by using inelastic tunnelling of electrons from the STM tip appears to be the most appropriate method for controlling, with precision, molecular reactions at a single site on a surface. The aim of this part of the action is to significantly advance our understanding of inelastic tunnelling of electrons from the STM tip for producing different kinds of elementary electron induced molecular reactions (e.g. dissociation, desorption, diffusion, change of conformation). These include the population of negative ion resonances or the electronic transitions between occupied and unoccupied electronic states of the molecules adsorbed on the surface. KeywordsElectron-induced reactions, molecular films, surfaces, adsorbates, reaction mechanisms List of WG3 participants
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Last updated: 4th December 2007