Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of a Luttinger Liquid

Abstract

Explicit predictions for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) on interacting one-dimensional electron systems are made using the Luttinger liquid formalism. The STM current changes with distance from an impurity or boundary in a characteristic way, which reveals the spin-charge separation and the interaction strength in the system. The current exhibits Friedel-like oscillations, but also carries additional modulated behavior as a function of voltage and distance, which shows the spin-charge separation in real space. Moreover, very close to the boundary the current is strongly reduced, which is an indication of the interaction strength in the system.