Electrodes, thermal broadening

Figure 5. (a) Thermal broadening function F for both electrodes normal, and for... 

Inelastic electron tunnelling spectroscopy (lETS) has been used to study some silanes on aluminium oxide. The technique records vibrational spectra of an absorbed monolayer. Silanes can be applied to the oxidised metal from solution or vapour, and devices are completed by evaporation of a top electrode which is usually of lead, because of its superconductivity. The device is cooled to the temperature of liquid helium (4.2 K) to minimise thermal broadening. Most electrons (>99%) pass through the device elastically, but a small number excite vibrational modes. It is these that are detected and displayed as a spectrum. Both IR and Raman modes can be observed the selection rule for lET spectroscopy is one of orientation, in that bonds which are aligned perpendicular to the surface give the most intense peaks. 

The low-frequency shift and the broadening of the CO spectra at 0 ps suggest that the low-frequency modes of adsorbed CO, that is, stretching, frustrated rotation, and frustrated translation modes of Pt-CO, were thermally excited by pump pulses, as reported by Bonn et al. [82] Thus, it is concluded that the transient site migration of adsorbed CO on the Pt electrode surface was caused by a transient rise in the surface temperature of Pt induced by pump pulses. 

IET line widths are determined by thermal and instrumental broadening, the latter being primarily due to the applied modulation voltage. With a superconducting Pb counter-electrode, the full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of an IETS peak is given roughly by [ 15 ]... 

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