扫描隧道显微镜诱导发光的历史和进展

Progress in scanning tunneling microscope induced luminescence

扫描隧道显微镜(STM)不仅可以用来观察和操纵纳米世界的一个个原子和分子,而且其高度局域化的隧穿电流还可以用来激发隧道结发光,能提供隧道结微腔内与各种激发及其衰变有关的局域电磁场响应和跃迁本质等信息.这种利用STM隧穿电流的激发来研究隧道结发光特性的技术称为STM诱导发光技术(STML).本文较为详细地介绍了该领域的研究历史、现状与发展趋势.在简要介绍光子收集与检测等实验技术后,概述了这一领域在金属和半导体表面方面的主要研究内容,并针对目前广泛关注的隧道结分子发光进行了详细的阐述.最后还简单介绍了STM诱导发光机制的理论研究,并对整个领域的发展进行了展望,特别是STM诱导分子发光技术对于研究单分子科学、单分子光电子学、以及纳米等离激元学的广阔前景.

A scanning tunneling microscope （STM） is capable of more than just observing and manipulating the nanoworld with atomic resolution, the tunneling current can also be used as a local source of excitation to produce light from the junction, the so-called STM induced luminescence （STML）, which can provide additional information on local electromagnetic properties pertaining to the decay of various excitations. In this review, we intend to provide an overview on the past history, current status, and future direction of the STML field. After a short introduction on the photon collection and detection techniques, a brief summary is presented about the major progress on the STML from metal and semiconductor surfaces. We then provide a detailed description on STM induced molecular luminescence, a field now receiving great attention and capable of offering various prospects in single molecular science, single molecular optoelectronics, and nanoplas- monics. Theoretical studies on the mechanism of STM induced luminescence were also briefly addressed.