Confining surface state electrons in less than two dimensions: A spectroscopic study

Abstract

We observe the partial confinement of the twodimensional electron gas of ans-p-like surface state by the regular step distribution of several vicinal Cu(111) surfaces. The spatial distribution of the surface state is visualized by scanning tunneling microscopy. Local tunneling spectroscopy reveals a shift of the maximum of the density of states of the surface state towards the Fermi level, which correlates with the size of the terraces. The average shift is also measured by angle-resolved photoemission and found to be consistent with a one-dimensional Kronig-Penney model.