Related papers: Nanowire Gold Chains: Formation Mechanisms and Con…
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 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…
Recent experiments showed that the last, single channel conductance step in monatomic gold contacts exhibits significant fluctuations as a function of stretching. From simulations of a stretched gold nanowire linked to deformable tips, we…
Equilibrium structure, local densities of states, and electronic transport in a gold nanowire made of a four-atom chain supported by two gold electrodes, which has been imaged recently by high-resolution electron microscopy, and chemical…
Spin-density-functional calculations of tip-suspended gold chains, with molecular oxygen, or dissociated oxygen atoms, incorporated in them, reveal structural transitions for varying lengths. The nanowires exhibit enhanced strength for both…
Using the Landauer formulation of transport theory and tight binding models of the electronic structure, we study electron transport through atomic wires that form 1D constrictions between pairs of metallic nano-contacts. Our results are…
We have investigated the stability and conductivity of unsupported, two dimensional infinite gold nanowires using ab-initio density functional theory (DFT). Two dimensional ribbon like nanowires, with 1-5 rows of gold atoms in the…
Gold nanowires generated by mechanical stretching have been shown to adopt only three kinds of configurations where their atomic arrangements adjust such that either the [100], [111] or [110] zone axes lie parallel to the elongation…
We present a study of the elongation and rupture of gold-silver alloy nanowires. Atomistic details of the evolution were derived from time-resolved atomic resolution transmission electron microscopy and molecular dynamics simulations. The…
We present detailed first-principles calculations of the electron-conduction properties of a three-sodium-atom nanowire suspended between semi-infinite crystalline Na(001) electrodes during its elongation. Our investigations reveal that the…
Nanowires of different nature have been shown to self-assemble as a function of stress at the contact between two macroscopic metallic leads. Here we demonstrate for gold wires that the balance between various metastable nanowire…
We performed density functional theory and tight-binding molecular dynamics calculations to investigate the formation of suspended linear atom chains when stretching gold nanowires along the [110] crystal orientation. We determined that…
We have examined theoretically the spontaneous thinning process of tip-suspended nanowires, and subsequently studied the structure and stability of the monatomic gold wires recently observed by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The…
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…
Electrical conductance through various nanocontacts between gold electrodes is studied by using the density functional theory, scalar-relativistic pseudopotentials, generalized gradient approximation for the exchange-correlation energy and…
Nanowires are formed by indenting and subsequently retracting two pieces of sodium metal. Their cross-section gradually reduces upon retraction and the diameters can be obtained from the conductance. In previous work we have demonstrated…
The process of creating an atomically defined and robust metallic tip is described and quantified using measurements of contact conductance between gold electrodes and numerical simulations. Our experiments show how the same conductance…
The evolution of the structure and conductance of an Al nanowire subject to a tensile stress has been studied by first-principles total-energy simulations. Our calculations show the correlation between discontinuous changes in the force…
A new form of gold nanobridges has been recently observed in ultrahigh-vacuum experiments, where the gold atoms rearrange to build helical nanotubes, akin in some respects to carbon nanotubes. The good reproducibility of these wires and…
Finite gold nanowires containing less than 1000 atoms are studied using the molecular dynamics simulation method and embedded atom potential. Nanowires with the face-centered cubic structure and the (111) oriented cross-section are prepared…