  The low-energy electronic properties of one-dimensional nanowires formed by
Pt atoms on Ge(001) are studied with scanning tunneling microscopy down to the
millivolt-regime. The chain structure exhibits various dimerized elements at
high tunneling bias, indicative of a substrate bonding origin rather than a
charge density wave. Unexpectedly, this dimerization becomes vanishingly small
when imaging energy windows close to the Fermi level with adequately low
tunneling currents. Evenly spaced nanowire atoms emerge which are found to
represent conduction states. Implications for the metallicity of the chains are
discussed.
