Using the highly localized current of electrons tunneling through a double barrier Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) junction, we excite luminescence from a selected C60 molecule in the surface layer of fullerene nanocrystals grown on an ultrathin NaCl film on Au(111). In the observed luminescence fluorescence and phosphorescence spectra, pure electronic as well as vibronically induced transitions of an individual C60 molecule are identified, leading to unambiguous chemical recognition on the single-molecular scale.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0506701,
title = {Fluorescence and phosphorescence from individual C$_{60}$ molecules excited by local electron tunneling},
author = {Elizabeta Ćavar and Marie-Christine Blüm and Marina Pivetta and François Patthey and Majed Chergui and Wolf-Dieter Schneider},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0506701},
year = {2015}
}