The relation between the tunnelling current I(t) and the interaction energy/force E in an atomic-scale contact is discussed in the framework of a theoretical model established here. According to our model, we predict the existence of two characteristic scaling regimes, where the tunnelling current is either proportional to the interaction energy, I(t) ~ E, or to the square of the interaction energy, I(t) ~ E(2). We show that the existence of a given regime is basically controlled by two parameters: (i) the energy degeneracy Δ and (ii) the hopping t between electronic levels involved in the interaction process. In addition, we discuss the validity of the Bardeen method to determine the tunnelling current in the short tip-sample distances.

Institute of Physics Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Prague Czech Republic

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Simultaneous current, force and dissipation measurements on the Si(111) 7×7 surface with an optimized qPlus AFM/STM technique