Photon emission from gold surfaces stimulated by electron tunneling under application of scanning tunneling microscopy has been detected in air. At low voltages, a correlation between the light emitted and the topographic features could be observed. The influence of various parameters on the light emission has been investigated. As a secondary phenomenon, the light emission was observed to decay in an irreversible way, at high voltages (2 V).

• Received 9 October 1991

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.45.8634