Dynamics of STM-Induced Acetylene Dissociation on Cu(100)

Abstract

A model is presented to describe the dynamics of an acetylene on Cu(100) induced by STM, where the relation between the change of the corresponding electron system caused by an electron tunneling from an STM tip to the metal substrate via the adsorbed acetylene, and the transition of the vibrational state for the intramolecular motion is taken into account. With this model, we can reproduce the experimentally measured dissociation probability of C₂H₂(C₂D₂) into C₂H(C₂D) and H(D) when the STM tip is set at a position above the center of the C-C bond of an adsorbed C₂H₂(C₂D₂).