Optical selection rules in light emission from the scanning tunneling microscope.
It is reported that optical selection rules still apply in light emission from the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Linear polarization of isochromat light emitted from the tunneling gap between a STM tip made of tungsten (W) and a silicon (Si) sample with a (001) clean surface strongly depends on the bias voltage between tip and sample. The results show that pi* and sigma* surface states, for example, of the Si(001) sample contribute to emission of p- and s-polarized light, respectively, in accordance with optical selection rules.
National Institute for Materials Science, Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
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Sakurai
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Thirstrup
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Aono