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Updated: May 6, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Rotational and vibrational excitations of a hydrogen molecule trapped within a nanocavity of tunable dimension
Shaowei Li1, Arthur Yu, Freddy Toledo
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
Abstract:
The rotational and vibrational transitions of a hydrogen molecule weakly adsorbed on the Au(110) surface at 10 K were detected by inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy with a scanning tunneling microscope. The energies of the j=0 to j=2 rotational transition for para-H(2) and HD indicate that the molecule behaves as a three-dimensional rigid rotor trapped within the tunnel junction. An increase in the bond length of H(2) was precisely measured from the downshift in the rotational energy as the tip-substrate distance decreases.
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