The strong spatial confinement of a nanocavity plasmonic field has made it possible to visualize the inner structure of a single molecule and even to distinguish its vibrational modes in real space. With such ever-improved spatial resolution, it is anticipated that full vibrational imaging of a molecule could be achieved to reveal molecular structural details. Here we demonstrate full Raman images of individual vibrational modes on the {\AA}ngstr\"om level for a single Mg-porphine molecule, revealing distinct characteristics of each vibrational mode in real space. Furthermore, by exploiting the underlying interference effect and Raman fingerprint database, we propose a new methodology for structural determination, coined as scanning Raman picoscopy, to show how such ultrahigh-resolution spectromicroscopic vibrational images can be used to visually assemble the chemical structure of a single molecule through a simple Lego-like building process.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1908.08720,
title = {Visually Constructing the Chemical Structure of a Single Molecule by Scanning Raman Picoscopy},
author = {Yao Zhang and Ben Yang and Atif Ghafoor and Yang Zhang and Yu-Fan Zhang and Rui-Pu Wang and Jin-Long Yang and Yi Luo and Zhen-Chao Dong and J. G. Hou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.08720},
year = {2020}
}