We demonstrate that nanocavity plasmons generated a few nanometers away from a molecule can induce molecular motion. For this, we study the well-known rapid shuttling motion of zinc phthalocyanine molecules adsorbed on ultrathin NaCl films by combining scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) with STM-induced light emission. Comparing spatially resolved single-molecule luminescence spectra from molecules anchored to a step edge with isolated molecules adsorbed on the free surface, we found that the azimuthal modulation of the Lamb shift is diminished in case of the latter. This is evidence that the rapid shuttling motion is remotely induced by plasmon-exciton coupling. Plasmoninduced molecular motion may open an interesting playground to bridge the nanoscopic and mesoscopic worlds by combining molecular machines with nanoplasmonics to control directed motion of single molecules without the need for local probes.

Artificial lattices derived from assembled atoms on a surface using scanning tunneling microscopy present a platform to create matter with tailored electronic, magnetic, and topological properties. However, artificial lattice studies to date have focused exclusively on surfaces with weak spin–orbit coupling. Here, we illustrate the creation and characterization of quantum corrals from iron atoms on the prototypical Rashba surface alloy BiCu 2 , using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. We observe very complex interference patterns that result from the interplay of the size of the confinement potential, the intricate multiband scattering, and hexagonal warping from the underlying band structure. On the basis of a particle-in-a-box model that accounts for the observed multiband scattering, we qualitatively link the resultant confined wave functions with the contributions of the various scattering channels. On the basis of these results, we studied the coupling of two quantum corrals and the effect of the underlying warping toward the creation of artificial dimer states. This platform may provide a perspective toward the creation of correlated artificial lattices with nontrivial topology.

We quantify the atomic-scale variation of the magnetic exchange force field between a ferromagnetic tip and the cycloidal spin spiral of one monolayer Mn on the W(110) surface, by utilizing the combination of spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy and magnetic exchange force microscopy (SPEX). Compared to the surprisingly weak spin polarization, the exchange force field is more sensitive to atomic-scale variations in the magnetization. First-principles calculations reveal that the measured atomic-scale variations in the exchange force originate from different contributions of direct and indirect (Zener) type exchange mechanisms, depending on the chemical tip termination. The weak spin polarization of the tunneling current results from pz states which dominate the local density of states around the Fermi energy. Our work provides the first characterization of the exchange force field together with the spin polarization of a spin spiral and opens the perspective of quantifying different exchange mechanisms of chiral magnetic structures with atomic-scale precision.

We image simultaneously the geometric, electronic and magnetic structure of a buckled iron bilayer film that exhibits chiral magnetic order. We achieve this by combining spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy and magnetic exchange force microscopy (SPEX), to independently characterize the geometric as well as the electronic and magnetic structure of non-flat surfaces.This new SPEX imaging technique reveals the geometric height corrugation of the reconstruction lines resulting from strong strain relaxation in the bilayer, enabling the decomposition of the realspace from the eletronic structure at the atomic level, and the correlation with the resultant spin spiral ground state. By additionally utilizing adatom manipulation, we reveal the chiral magnetic ground state of portions of the unit cell that were not previously imaged with SP-STM alone. Using density functional theory (DFT), we investigate the structural and electronic properties of the reconstructed bilayer and identify the favorable stoichiometry regime in agreement with our experimental result.

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For a given metric gµν , which is identified as Fisher information metric, we generate new constraints for the probability distributions for physical systems. We postulate the existence of intrinsic probability distributions for physical systems, and calculate the probability distribution by optimizing the Fisher information metric under specified constraints. Accordingly, we get differential equations for the probability distributions.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood have been accepted as a prognostic marker in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC). However, there is limited reported data on the use of CTCs as a prognostic marker for non-metastatic patients. In the current study, we used a rare cell automated analysis platform, the MiSelect R System, to enumerate CTCs from blood in non-metastatic CRC patients, and corelated the number of CTCs with the clinical staging and survival. The presence of CTCs in mesenteric vein blood (MVB) samples from 101 CRC patients was significantly associated with T stage. Patients with 1 or more CTCs per 8 mL of MVB exhibited significantly worse disease-free survival (DFS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) compared to patient without CTCs. The presence of CTC before surgery is an independent marker for both DFS and CSS. CTC presence after surgical resection is also a prognostic marker. CTCs are a potentially useful prognostic and predictive biomarker in non-metastatic CRC patients that may help to further stratify patient’s risk status within different stages of disease.