Related papers: Structure and local charging of electromigrated Au…
We show scanning probe microscopy measurements of metallic nanocontacts between controlled electromigration cycles. The nanowires used for the thinning process are fabricated by shadow evaporation. The highest resolution obtained using…
Granular aluminium is a high kinetic inductance thin film superconductor which, when formed into nanowires can undergo an intrinsic electromigration process. We use a combination of experimental and computational approaches to investigate…
We report on the application of a feedback-controlled electromigration technique for the formation of nanometer-sized gaps in mesoscopic gold wires and rings. The effect of current density and temperature, linked via Joule heating, on the…
We have developed a fast, yet highly reproducible method to fabricate metallic electrodes with nanometer separation using electromigration (EM). We employ four-terminal instead of two-terminal devices in combination with an analog feedback…
We present results on electromigrated Au nanojunctions broken near the conductance quantum $77.5 \mu$S. At room temperature we find that wires, initially narrowed by an actively-controlled electromigration technique down to a few…
We study the optical and electrical properties of silver films with a graded thickness obtained through metallic evaporation in vacuum on a tilted substrate to evaluate their use as semitransparent electrical contacts. We measure their…
Quantum confined Au nanoclusters exhibit molecule-like properties, including atomic precision and discrete energy levels. The electrical conductivity of Au nanocluster films can vary by several orders of magnitude, and is determined by the…
The electrical resistance R of metallic nanocontacts subjected to controlled cyclic electromigration in ultra-high vacuum has been investigated in-situ as a function of applied voltage V. For sufficiently small contacts, i.e., large…
Pairs of electrodes with nanometer separation (nano-gap) are achieved through an electromigration-induced break-junction (EIBJ) technique at room temperature. Lithographically defined gold (Au) wires are formed by e-beam evaporation over…
We present a simple and reliable method for making electrical contacts to small organic molecules with thiol endgroups. Nanometer-scale gaps between metallic electrodes have been fabricated by passing a large current through a…
Electrical resistivity in good metals, particularly noble metals such as gold (Au), silver (Ag), or copper, increases linearly with temperature ($T$) for $T > \Theta_{\mathrm{D}}$, where $\Theta_{\mathrm{D}}$ is the Debye temperature. This…
Real time electron microscopy observation on morphological changes in gold nano structures deposited on Si (100) surfaces as a function of annealing temperatures has been reported. Two types of interfaces with the substrate silicon were…
We investigate the histograms of conductance values obtained during controlled electromigration thinning of Cu thin films. We focus on the question whether the most frequently observed conductance values, apparent as peaks in conductance…
We study the ultrafast structural dynamics, in response to electronic excitations, in heterostructures composed of Au$_{923}$ nanoclusters on thin-film substrates with the use of femtosecond electron diffraction. Various forms of atomic…
We explore theoretically the properties of engineered bimetallic nano-structured superlattices where an array of nano-clusters of a simple (single band) metal are embedded periodically inside another simple metal with a different work…
Many experiments have shown that the conductance histograms of metallic atomic-sized contacts exhibit a peak structure, which is characteristic of the corresponding material. The origin of these peaks still remains as an open problem. In…
Nanostructured metals subject to local optical interrogation can generate open-circuit photovoltages potentially useful for energy conversion and photodetection. We report a study of the photovoltage as a function of illumination position…
We have fabricated single-electron transistors from individual metal nanoparticles using a geometry that provides improved coupling between the particle and the gate electrode. This is accomplished by incorporating a nanoparticle into a gap…
Conductance histograms are a valuable tool to study the intrinsic conduction properties of metallic atomic-sized contacts. These histograms show a peak structure, which is characteristic of the type of metal under investigation. Despite the…
Recent experiments on nanoclusters of silver (Ag) embedded in a gold (Au) matrix reveal a huge increase in both the zero temperature resistivity and the coefficient of the ``$T$ linear'' thermal resistivity with increasing volume fraction…