We induce superconductivity by proximity effect in thin layers of gold and study the number of conduction channels which contribute to the current in one-atom contacts and atomic wires. The atomic contacts and wires are fabricated with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope. The set of transmission probabilities of the conduction channels is obtained from the analysis of the I(V) characteristic curve which is highly non-linear due to multiple Andreev reflections. In agreement with theoretical calculations we find that there is only one channel which is almost completely open.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0303195,
title = {Single-channel transmission in gold one-atom contacts and chains},
author = {G. Rubio-Bollinger and C. de las Heras and E. Bascones and N. Agrait and F. Guinea and S. Vieira},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0303195},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures. To be published in Phys. Rev. B, Rapid Communications (2003)