Related papers: Stabilizing single atom contacts by molecular brid…
Break junctions provide tip-shaped contact electrodes that are fundamental components of nano and molecular electronics. However, the fabrication of break junctions remains notoriously time-consuming and difficult to parallelize. Here we…
Experimental correlation analysis and first-principles theory are used to probe the structure and evolution of Ag-CO-Ag single-molecule junctions, both before the formation, and after the rupture of the junctions. Two dimensional…
The continuing miniaturization of microelectronics raises the prospect of nanometre-scale devices with mechanical and electrical properties that are qualitatively different from those at larger dimensions. The investigation of these…
A scanning tunnelling microscope has been used to determine the conductance of single molecular wires with the configuration X-bridge-X, X-bridge-Y and Y-bridge-Y (X = thiol terminus and Y = COOH). We find that for molecular wires with…
Based on density-functional theory calculations, we report a detailed study of the single-molecule charge-transport properties for a series of recently synthesized biphenyl-dithiol molecules [D. Vonlanthen et al., Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 48,…
We have fabricated a variety of novel molecular tunnel junctions based on self-assembled-monolayers (SAM) of two-component solid-state mixtures of molecular wires (1,4 methane benzene-dithiol; Me-BDT with two thiol anchoring groups), and…
We investigate electronic transport through two types of conjugated molecules. Mechanically controlled break-junctions are used to couple thiol endgroups of single molecules to two gold electrodes. Current-voltage characteristics (IVs) of…
A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) supplemented with a force sensor is used to study the mechanical properties of a novel metallic nanostructure: a freely suspended chain of single gold atoms. We find that the bond strength of the…
Vibrationally coupled electron transport through single-molecule junctions is considered. Reviewing our recent theoretical work, we show that electron-hole pair creation processes represent the key to understand the vibrational excitation…
The measured conductance distribution for single molecule benzenediamine-gold junctions, based on 59,000 individual conductance traces recorded while breaking a gold point contact in solution, has a clear peak at 0.0064 G$_{0}$ with a width…
We report on inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy measurements carried out on single molecules incorporated into a mechanically controllable break-junction of Au and Pt electrodes at low temperature. Here we establish a correlation…
Low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy is used here to study dynamic bonding of gold atoms on surfaces under low coordination conditions. In the experiments, using an atomically-sharp gold tip, a gold adatom is deposited onto a gold…
A model for formation of helical multishell gold nanowires is proposed and is confirmed with the quantum mechanical molecular dynamics simulations. The model can explain the magic number of the helical gold nanowires in the multishell…
We analyze various limits of vibrationally coupled resonant electron transport in single-molecule junctions. Based on a master equation approach, we discuss analytic and numerical results for junctions under a high bias voltage or weak…
Stable, single-molecule conducting-bridge configurations are typically identified from peak structures in a conductance histogram. In previous work on Pt with H$_2$ at cryogenic temperatures it has been shown that a peak near 1 $G{_0}$…
An integrated piecewise thermal equilibrium approach based on the first-principles calculation method has been developed to calculate bias dependent electronic structures and current- and differential conductance-voltage characteristics of…
We investigate the effect on molecular transport due to the different structural aspects of metal-molecule interfaces. The example system chosen is the prototypical molecular device formed by sandwiching the phenyl dithiolate molecule (PDT)…
Based on the matrix Green's function method combined with hybrid tight-binding / density functional theory, we calculate the conductances of a series of gold-dithiol molecule-gold junctions including benzenedithiol (BDT),…
The formation and rupture of atomic-sized contacts is modelled by means of molecular dynamics simulations. Such nano-contacts are realized in scanning tunnelling microscope and mechanically controlled break junction experiments. These…
The point contact of a tunnel tip approaching towards Ag(111) and Cu(111) surfaces is investigated with a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope. A sharp jump-to-contact, random in nature, is observed in the conductance. After point…