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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Determination of the Excitation and Coupling Rates Between Light Emitters and Surface Plasmon Polaritons
Published on: July 21, 2018
Plasmon enhanced luminescence from fullerene molecules excited by local electron tunneling
Frédéric Rossel1, Marina Pivetta, François Patthey
1Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Institut de Physique des Nanostructures, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. frederic.rossel@epfl.ch
Abstract:
Tunneling electrons from a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) induce luminescence from C(60) and C(70) molecules forming fullerene nanocrystals grown on ultrathin NaCl films on Au(111). Intramolecular fluorescence and phosphorescence associated with the transitions between the lowest electronic excited state and ground state of C(70) molecules are identified, leading to unambiguous chemical recognition on the nanoscale. Moreover we demonstrate that the molecular luminescence is selectively enhanced by localized surface plasmons in the STM tip-sample gap.
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