Single-molecule reaction and characterization by vibrational excitation
(Result of the month 09/2002)

Series of STM topographic images acquired with the LT-STM at 4.7K (4.5nmx4.5nm, U=300mV, I=1nA): The upper left image shows two trans-2-butene molecules adsorbed on Pd(110) appearing as dumbbell-shaped protrusions with a maxi-mum height of 0.39Å. These molecules are sequentially con-verted by STM into 1,3-butadiene molecules, which appear as elliptical protrusions with the same height in the lower right images. The reaction product is chemically identified by single-molecule vibrational spectroscopy.
Mode-selective chemical processes have been widely utilized in photochemistry, photobiology or laser micromachining. Chemical reaction induced via vibrational excitation is a good candidate for mode-selective process, which enables the functional-group selective reaction. Scanning tunneling microscope is an ideal electron source for the mode-selective vibrational excitations of a single molecule through inelastic electron tunneling process. Several attempts have been made to apply such a process to the manipulation of single adsorbates, but the experimental realization of a vibrationally driven single-molecule reaction is a challenging object. Here, we report a mode-selective, molecule-to-molecule conversion by scanning tunneling microscope; a trans-2-butene to a 1,3-butadiene on palladium (110) surface, where the reaction product is chemically identified with single-molecule vibrational spectroscopy. The underlying mechanism is experimentally confirmed as a multiple vibrational excitation of a single adsorbed molecule via inelastic electron tunneling process.


Data courtesy of: Yousoo Kim1, Tadahiro Komeda1, Maki Kawai1 1) RIKEN (The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) Japan Yousoo Kim1, Tadahiro Komeda1 and Maki Kawai1: "Single-molecule reaction and characterization by vibrational excitation", Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, (2002), article number 126104, corresponding author: maki@postman.riken.go.jp 1 RIKEN (The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research), 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan

 
This result has been obtained with :
LT STM

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