Metal Electrode Formation on Organic Film Using Xe-Buffer-Layer-Assisted Deposition for Efficient Measurement of Inelastic Tunneling Spectroscopy

We demonstrate that, by using a Xe-buffer-layer-assisted deposition, a metal electrode can be formed on an organic film without altering the chemical properties of the molecules. A new efficient measurement of inelastic tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) was demonstrated by attaching the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip to the Au cluster. Au electrode was formed on a Xe buffer layer condensed on an alkanethiol self-assembled monolayer (SAM), in which the Xe layer prevents direct interaction between hot metal atoms and molecules in the film. An IETS measurement executed with the new method revealed the robustness of the molecules at the metal-film interface.