We propose inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy scanning tunneling microscopy (IETS-STM) as a means of exciting and observing intrinsic localized modes (breathers) in a macromolecule. As a demonstration, inelastic tunneling features of the density of states are calculated for a simple nonlinear elastic Morse chain. The general formalism we have developed for the IETS is applicable to other nonlinear extended objects, such as DNA on a substrate.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0407215,
title = {Detecting Breather Excitations with Inelastic Tunneling Spectroscopy},
author = {Jian-Xin Zhu and K. O. Rasmussen and A. R. Bishop and A. V. Balatsky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0407215},
year = {2007}
}