Related papers: Resistive and rectifying effects of pulling gold a…
Despite its fundamental importance for nano physics and chemistry and potential device applications, the relationship between atomic structure and electronic transport in molecular nanostructures is not well understood. Thus the…
It is often assumed that the hydrogen atoms in the thiol groups of a benzene-1,4-dithiol dissociate when Au-benzene-1,4-dithiol-Au junctions are formed. We demonstrate, by stability and transport properties calculations, that this…
Ab initio calculations of phenyl dithiol connected to Au, Ag, Pd, and Pt electrodes are performed using non-equilibrium Green's functions and density functional theory. For each metal, the properties of the molecular junction are considered…
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 report detailed atomistic simulations combined with high-fidelity conductance calculations to probe the structural origins of conductance fluctuations in thermally evolving Au-benzene-1,4-dithiolate-Au junctions. We compare the behavior…
Amine terminated molecules show well behaved conductance in the scanning tunneling microscope break-junction experimental measurements. We performed density functional theory based electron transport calculations to explain the nature of…
Molecules of bisthiolterthiophene have been adsorbed on the two facing gold electrodes of a mechanically controllable break junction in order to form metal-molecule(s)-metal junctions. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics have been…
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…
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…
We have carried out calculations of electron transport through a metal-molecule-metal junction with metal nanoclusters taking the part of electrodes. We show that negative differential resistance peaks could appear in the current-voltage…
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…
Motivated by recent experiments, we study the variability of the thermal conductance of single dithiolated alkane molecules of varying length connecting two gold electrodes. For this purpose, we examine (i) the influence of the…
We present a quantitative exploration, combining experiment and simulation, of the mechanical and electronic properties, as well as the modifications induced by an alkylthiolated coating, at the single NP level. We determine the response of…
For investigation of electron transport on the nanoscale, a system possessing a simple to interpret electronic structure is composed of alkane chains bridging two electrodes via end groups; to date the majority of experiments and…
We reveal the role of aurophilic interactions in the formation and conductance of gold cyanide molecular wires of variable length-to-width ratios assembled at the tip of an STM break junction in ambient conditions. Specifically, we identify…
We present a theoretical study of the transport characteristics of molecular junctions, where first-row diatomic molecules are attached to (001) gold and platinum electrodes. We find that the conductance of all of these junctions is of the…
The effect of anchoring group on the electrical conductance of a single molecule bridging two Au electrodes was studied using di-substituted (isocyanide (CN-), thiol (S-) or cyanide (NC-)) benzene. The conductance of a single…
Using the break junction (BJ) technique we show that Au(RS)2 units play a significant role in thiol-terminated molecular junctions formed on gold. We have studied a range of thiol-terminated compounds, either with the sulfur atoms in direct…
We present first-principles calculations of the dI/dV characteristics of an H2 molecule sandwiched between Au and Pt electrodes in the presence of electron-phonon interactions. The conductance is found to decrease by a few percentage at…
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…