A minimal model of inelastic tunneling of vibrating magnetic molecules on superconducting substrates

We present an efficient method of calculating the vibrational spectrum of a magnetic molecule adsorbed on a superconductor, directly related to the first derivative of the tunneling \(IV\) curve. The work is motivated by a recent scanning-tunneling spectroscopy of lead phthalocyanine on superconduct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-12
Main Authors: Koliogiorgos, Athanasios, Korytár, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electron tunneling
Exact solutions
Lead phthalocyanine
Molecular orbitals
Spectrum analysis
Superconductivity
Superconductors
Vibrational spectra
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Summary:We present an efficient method of calculating the vibrational spectrum of a magnetic molecule adsorbed on a superconductor, directly related to the first derivative of the tunneling \(IV\) curve. The work is motivated by a recent scanning-tunneling spectroscopy of lead phthalocyanine on superconducting Pb(100), showing a wealth of vibrational excitations, the number of which highly exceeds molecular vibrations typically encountered on normal metals. We design a minimal model which represents the inelastic transitions by the spectral function of a frontier orbital of the molecule in isolation. The model allows for an exact solution; otherwise the full correlated superconducting problem would be hard to treat. The model parameters are supplied from an ab-initio calculation, where the presence of the surface on the deformation of molecular geometry can be taken into account. The spectral function of the highest-occupied molecular orbital of the anionic PbPc\(^{1-}\) shows the best agreement with the experimental reference among other molecular charge states and orbitals. The method allows to include multiple vibrational transitions straightforwardly.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2403.10852