Characterizing and Manipulating Individual Molecules by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) can provide us the special means to characterize the locally physical and chemical properties of individual molecules, and even help us to manipulate the individual molecules for constructing new molecule-scale devices. Here we have adopted two new types of STM techniques to characterize the encapsulated metal atom inside a fullerene cage, and to construct a molecule-device with strong Kondo effect, respectively. The spatially dI/dV mapping spectra were used to unveil the energy-resolved metal-cage hybrid states of individual Dy@C82 molecule, and the important information about the spatial position of Dy atom inside the cage and the Dy-cage interaction was revealed. The high-voltage pulse by STM tip is controlled to induce the dehydrogenation of Co phthalocyanine molecule and change its adsorption configuration on Au(111) surface, so as to recover Kondo effect that disappears in the case of intact adsorbed molecule.