Probing Intermolecular Coupled Vibrations between Two Molecules.
Intermolecular interactions can induce energy shifts and coupling of molecular vibrations. However, the detection of intermolecular coupled vibrations has not been reported at the single molecule level. Here we detected an intermolecular coupled vibration between two CO molecules, one on the surface and another on the tip within the gap of a subkelvin scanning tunneling microscope, and analyzed the results by density functional calculations. We attribute the evolution of the energy and intensity of this coupled vibration as a function of tip-sample distance to the tilting and orbital alignment of the two CO molecules.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
Zhumin
Z
Han
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
Gregory
G
Czap
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
Chen
C
Xu
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
Chi-Lun
CL
Chiang
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.|Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China.
Dingwang
D
Yuan
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
Ruqian
R
Wu
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.|Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-2025, USA.
W
W
Ho