ELECTRON CONFINEMENT TO NANOSCALE AG ISLANDS ON AG(111) - A QUANTITATIVE STUDY

Lateral confinement has been suggested as a possible mechanism for dep opulation of surface state levels and concomitant modification of meta l surface related properties. Studies to date give conflicting account s of the effectiveness of confinement due to scattering at step edges. We present a quantitative study of surface states on nanoscale Ag isl ands on Ag(111), using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy a nd electronic structure calculations. These results confirm the validi ty of the confinement picture down to the smallest of island sizes.