A minimal model of inelastic tunneling of vibrating magnetic molecules on superconducting substrates

Abstract

We present an efficient method of calculating the vibrational spectrum of a magnetic molecule adsorbed on a superconductor, directly related to the first derivative of the tunneling $IV$ curve. The work is motivated by a recent scanning-tunneling spectroscopy of lead phthalocyanine on superconducting Pb(100), showing a wealth of vibrational excitations, the number of which highly exceeds molecular vibrations typically encountered on normal metals. We design a minimal model which represents the inelastic transitions by the spectral function of a frontier orbital of the molecule in isolation. The model allows for an exact solution; otherwise the full correlated superconducting problem would be hard to treat. The model parameters are supplied from an ab-initio calculation, where the presence of the surface on the deformation of molecular geometry can be taken into account. The spectral function of the highest-occupied molecular orbital of the anionic PbPc${}^{1-}$ shows the best agreement with the experimental reference among other molecular charge states and orbitals. The method allows to include multiple vibrational transitions straightforwardly.

arXiv comment9 pages main text, 9 pages Supplemental Material (SM); 2 figures in main text, 16 figures and one table in SM

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