Exploring the interatomic forces between tip and single molecules during STM manipulation.

The interaction between a single molecule and the STM tip during intramolecular manipulation is investigated in detail. We show that the conformational change of complex organic molecules can be induced reversibly and very reliably by using exclusively attractive forces. By studying the dependence of this process on the bias voltage and the tip position, the driving forces are characterized. Different regimes of tip-molecule interactions are observed as a function of the distance.