Related papers: Planar nanocontacts with atomically controlled sep…
The conductance of breaking metallic nanojunctions shows plateaus alternated with sudden jumps, corresponding to the stretching of stable atomic configurations and atomic rearrangements, respectively. We investigate the structure of the…
Tunable composite materials with interesting physical behavior can be designed through integrating unique optical properties of solid nanostructures with the facile responses of soft matter to weak external stimuli, but this approach…
Quantum technologies require a new generation of superconducting electronic devices and circuitry. However, the superconducting materials used to construct them are restricted to a class of bulk superconductors. Gold films grown in contact…
Atomically thin materials exhibit electronic and optical properties distinct from their three-dimensional counterparts. For metals, particularly gold, monolayer studies remain largely unexplored due to fabrication and characterisation…
Designing molecular organic semiconductors with distinct frontier orbitals is key for the development of devices with desirable properties. Generating defined organic nanostructures with atomic precision can be accomplished by on-surface…
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…
Systems of quantum dots (QD) connected to leads exhibit periodic conductance peaks as a function of gate voltage arising from the Coulomb blockade effect \cite{review1,review2,review3}. Much effort goes into minimizing the size of QDs and…
Electronic excitations in metallic nanoparticles in the optical regime that have been of great importance in surface enhanced spectroscopy and emerging applications of molecular plasmonics, due to control and confinement of electromagnetic…
Artificial nanostructures, fabricated by placing building blocks such as atoms or molecules in well-defined positions, are a powerful platform in which quantum effects can be studied and exploited on the atomic scale. Here, we report a…
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…
Graphene is an attractive electrode material to contact nanostructures down to the molecular scale since it can be gated electrostatically. Gating can be used to control the doping and the energy level alignment in the nanojunction, thereby…
This study investigates the structural stability of ionized gold clusters of sizes ranging from 22 to 100 atoms, contrasting compact, cage and planar structures. While it is well known that neutral clusters in the upper part of this size…
Electrochemistry experiments have established that the capacitance of electrode-electrolyte interfaces is much larger for good metals such as gold and platinum than for carbon-based materials. Despite the development of elaborate electrode…
We present a feasibility study for loading cold atomic clouds into magnetic traps created by single-wall carbon nanotubes grown directly onto dielectric surfaces. We show that atoms may be captured for experimentally sustainable nanotube…
We report the electrical detection of captured gases through measurement of the tunneling characteristics of gas-mediated molecular junctions formed across nanogaps. The gas sensing nanogap device consists of a pair of vertically stacked…
We have developed the combination of an etching and deposition technique that enables the fabrication of locally gated graphene nanostructures of arbitrary design. Employing this method, we have fabricated graphene nanoconstrictions with…
Transistors, regardless of their size, rely on electrical gates to control the conductance between source and drain contacts. In atomic-scale transistors, this conductance is exquisitely sensitive to single electrons hopping via individual…
We present two different techniques for achieving low resistance ($<$20 n$\rm \Omega$) contacts between copper and aluminium at cryogenic temperatures. The best method is based on gold plating of the surfaces in an e-beam evaporator…
Gallium displays physical properties which can make it a potential element to produce metallic nanowires and high-conducting interconnects in nanoelectronics. Using first-principles pseudopotential plane method we showed that Ga can form…
Atomic sensors employing cold-atom technology enable unprecedented accuracy and resolution for next generation atomic clocks, magnetometers, gravimeters, and gyroscopes. To date, however, the size and complexity of cold atom systems have…