Emission of visible photons was observed as mass selected clusters of Agn+, Ptn+ and Pdn+ (n=1 ... 5) impinge on surfaces of Ag and graphite at low kinetic energies (~8 eV). The emission intensities display distinct cluster-size effects for each of the cluster materials. The observations are interpreted in terms of resonant neutralization and radiative capture of electrons tunneling at nanometer distances. The photon emission process is shown to depend sensitively on the proximal evolution of the ionization energy of the cluster as it approaches the surface.
By: R. Berndt (Univ. de Lausanne, Switz.), H. -V. Roy (Univ. de Lausanne, Switz.), C. Monreal (Univ. Autonoma de Madrid, Spain), N. Lorente (Univ. Autonoma de Madrid, Spain), P. Fayet (Univ. de Lausanne, Switz.), P. Apell (Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Sweden), J. K. Gimzewski and W.-D. Schneider (Univ. de Lausanne, Switz.)
Published in: RZ2750 in 1995
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