Confinement effect on scattering states in a thin lead film: Field-induced resonance states in the high-bias regime of scanning tunneling microscopy

Journal article, 2007

Field-induced resonance states in the high-bias regime of scanning tunneling microscopy are used to couple and probe the scattering states above the vacuum level in a thin lead film. The resonance energies show a bilayer oscillation as a function of film thickness. Theoretical modeling unveils that the oscillation results from the confinement of the highly excited scattering states by the quantum well, yielding a bilayer phase modulation at the boundaries where they are coherently coupled to the external states.