Forces from periodic charging of adsorbed molecules

Abstract

In a recent publication [Kocić et al., Nano Lett. 15, 4406 (2015)], it was shown that gating of molecular levels in the field of an oscillating tip of an atomic force microscope can enable a periodic charging of individual molecules synchronized to the tip’s oscillatory motion. Here we discuss further implications of such measurements, namely, how the force difference associated with the single-electron charging manifests itself in atomic force microscopy images and how it can be detected as a function of tip-sample distance. Moreover, we discuss how the critical voltage for the charge-state transition depends on distance and how that relates to the local contact potential difference. These measurements allow also for an estimate of the absolute tip-sample distance.