Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy Studies of Glycine on Cu(100): Inelastic-Tunneling Manipulation of Single Glycine Molecule

摘要

The chemical reaction of a glycine molecule on a Cu(100) surface from the neutral (NH_2CH_2COOH) to the glycinate (NH_2CH_2COO~-) form via deprotonation, which had been analyzed on the basis of the results obtained by, for example, vibrational spectroscopy and diffraction methods, was studied at the single-molecule level by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy. The chemical reaction was successfully reproduced by the inelastic tunneling process thorough deprotonation. The threshold bias voltage for the reaction process could be attributed to the energy of the O-H stretch vibrational mode, and the asymmetric STM image after the reaction was in good agreement with the structure based on the predicted model.