Single molecule manipulation at low temperature and laser scanning tunnelling photo-induced processes analysis...

This paper describes, firstly, the statistical analysis used to determine the processes that occur during the manipulation of a single molecule through electronically induced excitations with a low temperature (5 K) scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). Various molecular operation examples are described and the ability to probe the ensuing molecular manipulation dynamics is discussed within the excitation context. It is, in particular, shown that such studies can reveal reversible manipulation for tuning dynamics through variation of the excitation energy. Secondly, the photo-induced process arising from the irradiation of the STM junction is also studied through feedback loop dynamics analysis, allowing us to distinguish between photo-thermally and photo-electronically induced signals.