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Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 046801 (2005).
Lifetimes of Stark-shifted image states
Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom
Abstract
The inelastic lifetimes of electrons in image-potential states at Cu(100)
that are
Stark-shifted by the electrostatic tip-sample interaction in the scanning
tunneling microscope are calculated using the many-body GW approximation.
The results demonstrate that in typical tunneling conditions the image state
lifetimes are significantly reduced from their field-free values.
The Stark-shift to higher energies increases the number of inelastic scattering
channels that are available for decay, with field-induced changes in
the image state
wave function increasing the efficiency of the inelastic scattering through
greater overlap with final state wave functions.