Creating pseudo Kondo-resonances by field-induced diffusion of atomic hydrogen

Abstract

In low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments a cerium adatom on Ag(100) possesses two discrete states with significantly different apparent heights. These atomic switches also exhibit a Kondo-like feature in spectroscopy experiments. By extensive theoretical simulations we find that this behavior is due to diffusion of hydrogen from the surface onto the Ce adatom in the presence of the STM tip field. The cerium adatom possesses vibrational modes of very low energy (3-4meV) and very high efficiency (> 20%), which are due to the large changes of Ce-states in the presence of hydrogen. The atomic vibrations lead to a Kondo-like feature at very low bias voltages. We predict that the same low-frequency/high-efficiency modes can also be observed at lanthanum adatoms.