Probing tip-induced attractive deformation of graphite surfaces through wave function dissipation in field emission resonance

Abstract We studied wave function dissipation (WFD) in field emission resonance (FER) by performing scanning tunneling microscopy on the highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) and Ag(111) surfaces under two conditions: (1) same current FER number; (2) tip structure but different currents. Under first condition, we observed that decay rate corresponding to WFD exhibited a larger variation HOPG surface than it did surface. second was nearly independent of electric for surface; contrast, linearly proportional These remarkable differences can be attributed factors tip-induced attractive deformation caused electrostatic force considerably more prominent deformed top layer had unique electronic similar single-layer graphene.