SHARP ANOMALIES IN THE SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE I-V CHARACTERISTICS AT ROOM-TEMPERATURE

A fine structure in the current-voltage characteristics of oxidized Zn , Cd, and Au measured by means of the room-temperature high stability STM technique is reported. The normalized second voltage derivatives o btained by numerical differentiation clearly reveal sharp anomalies ne ar the voltages corresponding to the energies of oxide phonons. By ana lyzing the results, it is concluded that the physics of the effect inv olves the electron tunneling transfer via a series of quantum dots and the abrupt rearrangement of a dot local atomic structure accompanied by phonon emission.