Rattling motion of a single atom in a fullerene cage molecule sensed by terahertz spectroscopy

Abstract

Upon the discovery of the superatom states in endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs), the superatom properties have become attractive, because ultrafast motion of the trapped atom modifies the charge distribution in the fullerene cage. However, the observation of ultrafast atom motion in the fullerene cage is very challenging, since dynamical processes take place in the terahertz (THz) frequency range in a picometer region. Here, we report on the THz spectroscopy of single Ce@C82 EMF molecules by using the single molecule transistor geometry. Due to the vibron-assisted tunneling process, two broad photocurrent peaks are observed in the THz spectra and are ascribed to the bending and stretching motions of the encapsulated single Ce atom. This work demonstrates that THz spectroscopy using nanogap electrodes can detect a motion of a single atom, opening a door to ultrafast THz nanoscience on the picometer-scale.

References in corpus (7)

• Optical Rectification and Field Enhancement in a Plasmonic Nanogap
• Controlled Fabrication of Nanogaps in Ambient Environment for Molecular Electronics
• Orbital-selective single molecule excitation and spectroscopy based on plasmon-exciton coupling
• Electronic excitations of a single molecule contacted in a three-terminal configuration
• Tunneling Spectra of Individual Magnetic Endofullerene Molecules
• Intercalant and intermolecular phonon assisted superconductivity in K-doped picene
• Terahertz dynamics of electron-vibron coupling in single molecules with tunable electrostatic potential