Direct observation of many-body charge density oscillations in a two-dimensional electron gas

• Published in: Nature communications 2015-10, Vol.6 (1), p.8691-8691, Article 8691
• Main Authors: Sessi, Paolo, Silkin, Vyacheslav M., Nechaev, Ilya A., Bathon, Thomas, El-Kareh, Lydia, Chulkov, Evgueni V., Echenique, Pedro M., Bode, Matthias
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/301/119; 639/766/25/3927; Electrons; Energy; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Physics; Point defects; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Visualization
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9691

Quantum interference is a striking manifestation of one of the basic concepts of quantum mechanics: the particle-wave duality. A spectacular visualization of this effect is the standing wave pattern produced by elastic scattering of surface electrons around defects, which corresponds to a modulation of the electronic local density of states and can be imaged using a scanning tunnelling microscope. To date, quantum-interference measurements were mainly interpreted in terms of interfering electrons or holes of the underlying band-structure description. Here, by imaging energy-dependent standing-wave patterns at noble metal surfaces, we reveal, in addition to the conventional surface-state band, the existence of an ‘anomalous’ energy band with a well-defined dispersion. Its origin is explained by the presence of a satellite in the structure of the many-body spectral function, which is related to the acoustic surface plasmon. Visualizing the corresponding charge oscillations provides thus direct access to many-body interactions at the atomic scale. The implementation of topological insulators in spintronics requires the control of the topological spin texture. Here, the authors show that noble metal atoms added to the surface enable this controllability by altering the magnetic anisotropy and energy level alignment.