Phonon contribution to the lifetime of surface state quasiparticles confined in nanopyramids

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Jan 8;104(1):016802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.016802. Epub 2010 Jan 5.

Abstract

We present a scanning tunneling microscopy investigation of the dynamics of hot electrons and holes in Ag pyramidal nanostructures. The geometry of the nanostructure leads to a strong reduction of the decay mechanism into the bulk states and then to a large reflection coefficient of the surface electronic waves. Therefore, in contrast to quantum corrals and adatom islands which show a dominant lossy scattering contribution to the linewidth, the narrow observed structures in the differential conductivity spectra reveal the expected linewidth minimum at the Fermi energy. The electron-phonon contribution to the lifetime is shown to be dominant, in agreement with previous photoemission measurements.