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Determining Energy Dispersion of Spin Excitations with Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy

J. C. G. Henriques1,2, Chenxiao Zhao3, G. Catarina3, Pascal Ruffieux3, Roman Fasel3,4, and J. Fernández-Rossier1,*

  • *On permanent leave from Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Spain.
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 096703 – Published 29 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/n8jn-p468

Abstract

Conventional methods to measure the dispersion relations of collective spin excitations involve probing bulk samples with particles such as neutrons, photons, or electrons, which carry a well-defined momentum. Open-ended finite-size spin chains, on the contrary, do not have a well-defined momentum due to the lack of translation symmetry, and their spin excitations are measured with an eminently local probe, using inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Here, we discuss under what conditions STM-IETS spectra can be Fourier-transformed to yield dispersion relations in these systems. We relate the success of this approach to the degree to which spin excitations form standing waves. We show that STM-IETS can reveal the energy dispersion of magnons in ferromagnets and triplons in valence bond crystals, but not that of spinons, the spin excitations in Heisenberg spin-1/2 chains. We compare our theoretical predictions with state-of-the-art measurements on nanographene chains that realize the relevant spin Hamiltonians.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 096703– Published 29 August, 2025
  • Received 12 March 2025
  • Accepted 24 July 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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