Spectroscopy of quantum wires

Starting with a single Cu adatom on Cu(111), monatomic Cu chains can be successively assembled by means of lateral manipulation (left panel). Spectroscopy measurements reveal that these Cu chains represent 1D quantum wells as evident from a series of chain-localized bound states (center panel). The square of the wavefunction of the respective eigenstates (cf. for example dI/dV maps of a Cu7 chain, right panel) reveal clear quantum wire behavior.

S. Fölsch, P. Hyldgaard, R. Koch, K. H. Ploog, Quantum Confinement in Monatomic Cu Chains on Cu(111), Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 (2004), 056803.