Vibrational excitations in magnetic triangular nanographenes
Researchers used inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) to study spin excitations in a phenalenyl radical on a gold surface. They found that the observed inelastic features are due to vibrational excitation, not magnetic ones, by analyzing their spatial distribution and comparing results with theoretical calculations. This allows them to assign specific molecular vibrational modes to the measured spectral steps.