Related papers: Platinum atomic contacts: from tunneling to contac…

Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), we investigated the evolution of electrical conductance between a Pb tip and Pb(111) surface from tunneling to atomic point contact at a site that was defined with atomic precision. We found that…

The evolution of electron conductance in the presence of inelastic effects is studied as an atomic gold contact is formed evolving from a low-conductance regime (tunneling) to a high-conductance regime (contact). In order to characterize…

The work presents the extended theoretical model of the electrical conductance in non-magnetic and magnetic nano-size point contacts. The developed approach describes diffusive, quasi-ballistic, ballistic and quantum regimes of the…

In this thesis we study electron transport through magnetic nanocontacts and nanowires with ab initio quantum transport calculations. The aim is to gain a thorough understanding of the interplay between electrical conduction and magnetism…

We apply the mechanically controllable break junctions technique to investigate the transition from tunneling to direct contact in tungsten. This transition is quite different from that of other metals and is determined by the local…

The transition from tunneling to metallic contact between two surfaces does not always involve a jump, but can be smooth. We have observed that the configuration and material composition of the electrodes before contact largely determines…

To develop next-generation electronics and high efficiency energy-harvesting devices, it is crucial to understand how charge and heat are transported at the nanoscale. Metallic atomic-size contacts are ideal systems to probe the quantum…

We have fabricated Pt-containing granular metals by focused electron beam induced deposition from the $(CH_3)_3CH_3C_5H_4Pt$ precursor gas. The granular metals are made of platinum nanocrystallites embedded in a carbonaceous matrix. We have…

Many phenomena in condensed matter are thought to result from competition between different ordered phases. Palladium is a paramagnetic metal close to both ferromagnetism and superconductivity, and is therefore a potentially interesting…

Pt nanocontacts, like those formed in mechanically controlled break junctions, are shown to develop spontaneous local magnetic order. Our density functional calculations predict that a robust local magnetic order exists in the atoms…

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 conductance of a single-atom contact is sensitive to the coupling of this contact atom to the atoms in the leads. Notably for the transition metals this gives rise to a considerable spread in the observed conductance values. The mean…

We present an extended discussion of a recently proposed theoretical approach for off-resonance tunneling transport. The proofs and the arguments are explained at length and simple analogies and illustrations are used where possible. The…

Atomic-sized lead (Pb) contacts are deposited and dissolved in an electrochemical environment, and their transport properties are measured. Due to the electrochemical fabrication process, we obtain mechanically unstrained contacts and…

The conductance of C60 on Cu(100) is investigated with a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. At the transition from tunneling to the contact regime the conductance of C60 adsorbed with a pentagon-hexagon bond rises rapidly to…

We study theoretically quantum transport through laser-irradiated metallic atomic-sized contacts. The radiation field is treated classically, assuming its effect to be the generation of an ac voltage over the contact. We derive an…

We treat a tunneling electron coupled to acoustical phonons through a realistic electron phonon interaction: deformation potential and piezoelectric, in two or three-dimensional tunneling configurations. Making use of slowness of the phonon…

We calculate the electrical conductivity of a thin crystalline strip of atoms confined within a quasi one dimensional channel of fixed width. The conductivity shows anomalous behavior as the strip is deformed under tensile loading. Beyond a…

We theoretically investigate tunneling through free-space or dielectric nanogaps between metallic nanocontacts driven by ultrashort ultrabroadband light pulses. For this purpose we develop a time-dependent quasiclassical theory being…

Tunneling in quantum field theory is worth understanding properly, not least because it controls the long term fate of our universe. There are however, a number of features of tunneling rate calculations which lack a desirable transparency,…