Determining the molecular Huang-Rhys factor via STM induced luminescence

Abstract: The scanning tunneling microscopy induced luminescence (STML) can be used to probe the optical and electronic properties of molecules. Concerning the vibronic coupling, we model the molecule as a two-level system with the vibrational degrees of freedom. Based on the Bardeen's theory, we express the inelastic tunneling current in terms of Huang-Rhys factor within the inelastic electron scattering (IES) mechanism. We find that the differential conductance, varying with the bias voltage, exhibits distinct step structure with various vibronic coupling strength. The second derivative of the inelastic tunneling current with respect to the bias voltage shows the characteristics of vibrational-level structure with Franck-Condon factor. Consequently, we propose a method to determine the Huang-Rhys factor of molecules, holding promising potential within the realm of solid-state physics.