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Updated: May 23, 2026

All-electronic Nanosecond-resolved Scanning Tunneling Microscopy: Facilitating the Investigation of Single Dopant Charge Dynamics
Published on: January 19, 2018
Scanning-tunneling microscope imaging of single-electron solitons in a material with incommensurate charge-density
Serguei Brazovskii1, Christophe Brun, Zhao-Zhong Wang
1Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques, CNRS and University Paris-Sud, bat. 100, 91405 Orsay, France.
Abstract:
We report on scanning-tunneling microscopy experiments in a charge-density wave (CDW) system allowing visually capturing and studying in detail the individual solitons corresponding to the self-trapping of just one electron. This "Amplitude Soliton" is marked by vanishing of the CDW amplitude and by the π shift of its phase. It might be the realization of the spinon--the long-sought particle (along with the holon) in the study of science of strongly correlated electronic systems. As a distinct feature we also observe one-dimensional Friedel oscillations superimposed on the CDW which develop independently of solitons.
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