Quantitative access to inelastic tunneling channels from plasmon-mediated photon emission
Phys. Rev. B 114, 305408 – Published 5 November, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/qmvh-rzsk
Abstract
Scanning tunneling microscope–induced light emission is an established technique for probing local electronic processes via optical spectroscopy. Local surface plasmons within the tunnel junction drive photon emission from metallic systems. Previous experimental and theoretical studies solidified our understanding of the involved surface-plasmon modes in terms of the tip-sample geometry, lateral extension, tip and sample materials. The influence of final states for inelastic tunneling and the competition between inelastic and elastic tunneling are qualitatively identified. In this work, we quantitatively address the excitation process, i.e., inelastic tunneling within the framework of the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation. A single reference spectrum and the recorded tip-sample distance serve as experimental input parameters. This approach neither requires modeling of the plasmon resonance nor the electronic structure, and is ideally suited for direct comparison with experimental data. We obtain excellent agreement with the experimental data obtained for Ag(111) and Cu(100). We identify an easily accessible marker to distinguish between excitation by inelastic and elastic tunneling, which is demonstrated for the quantum well state transition in Na/Cu(111).
