Vibrational Kondo Effect in Pure Organic Charge-Transfer Assemblies

A Kondo resonance has been observed using a scanning tunneling microscope on a single molecular layer of a purely organic charge-transfer salt grown on a metal surface. Analysis of the Kondo anomaly reveals that the electron acceptor of the film possesses a spin-1/2 ground state due to the localization of an unpaired electron in the conjugated lowest unoccupied molecular orbital. Because of the pi character of this molecular state the unpaired electron is strongly coupled to molecular vibrations, leading to the split of the Kondo resonance in vibrational sidebands.