The metal-atom chains on the Si(111) - 5 × 2 - Au surface represent an exceedingly interesting system for the understanding of one-dimensional electrical interconnects. While other metal-atom chain structures on silicon suffer from metal-to-insulator transitions, Si(111) - 5 × 2 - Au stays metallic at least down to 20 K as we have proven by the anisotropic absorption from localized plasmon polaritons in the infrared. A quantitative analysis of the infrared plasmonic signal done here for the first time yields valuable band structure information in agreement with the theoretically derived data. The experimental and theoretical results are consistently explained in the framework of the atomic geometry, electronic structure, and IR spectra of the recent Kwon-Kang model.

The plasmonic signals of quasi-1D electron systems are a clear and direct measure of their metallic behavior. Due to the finite size of such systems in reality, plasmonic signals from a gold-induced superstructure on Si(5 5 3) can be studied with infrared spectroscopy. The infrared spectroscopic features have turned out to be extremely sensitive to adsorbates. Even without geometrical changes of the surface superstructure, the effects of doping, of the adsorbate induced electronic surface scattering, and of the electronic polarizability changes on top of the substrate surface give rise to measurable changes of the plasmonic signal. Especially strong changes of the plasmonic signal have been observed for gold, oxygen, and hydrogen exposure. The plasmonic resonance gradually disappears under these exposures, indicating the transion to an insulating behavior, which is in accordance with published results obtained from other experimental methods. For C 70 and, as shown here for the first time, TAPP-Br, the plasmonic signal almost retains its original intensity even up to coverages of many monolayers. For C 70 , the changes of the spectral shape, e.g. of electronic damping and of the resonance position, were also found to be marginal. On the other hand, TAPP-Br adsorption shifts the plasmonic resonance to higher frequencies and strongly increases the electronic damping. Given the dispersion relation for plasmonic resonances of 1D electron systems, the findings for TAPP-Br indicate a push-back effect and therefore stronger confinement of the free charge carriers in the quasi-one-dimensonal channel due to the coverage by the flat TAPP-Br molecules. On the gold-doped Si(5 5 3)-Au surface TAPP-Br acts as counter dopant and increases the plasmonic signal.

Free charge carriers confined to atomic chains such as the gold-induced superstructures on the stepped Si(553) surface enable experimental insight into one-dimensional physics. Embedding into the higher dimensional substrate allows for additional couplings between the free charge carriers and their surroundings, which might modify the one-dimensional characteristics. The gold atom superstructures on Si(553) consist of a parallel arrangement of metallic chains from Au and Si atoms on the terraces and of parallel Si step edges with some of the Si atoms having dangling bonds with one unpaired electron. The metallic chains give rise to localized plasmonic excitations. We have studied these plasmonic resonances with infrared spectroscopy that enables the detection of resonance shifts as small as 1 meV or even less. The plasmonic behavior of the conductive chains of the high- and the low-coverage gold superstructures on Si(553) is investigated at various temperatures and additionally after filling electrons into certain electronic states by placing gold adatoms onto the high-coverage structure. When cooling to 20 K, the strong plasmonic signals of the undoped superstructures become even stronger but shift to lower frequencies, which is attributed to the temperature dependent change of the orientational polarization of the Si dangling bonds. Regarding their plasmonic resonance shifts, the conductive atom chains work just like refractive index sensors.