Abstract
AbstractMolecular electronics break-junction experiments are widely used to investigate fundamental physics and chemistry at the nanoscale. Reproducibility in these experiments relies on measuring conductance on thousands of freshly formed molecular junctions, yielding a broad histogram of conductance events. Experiments typically focus on the most probable conductance, while the information content of the conductance histogram has remained unclear. Here we develop a microscopic theory for the conductance histogram by merging the theory of force-spectroscopy with molecular conductance. The procedure yields analytical equations that accurately fit the conductance histogram of a wide range of molecular junctions and augments the information content that can be extracted from them. Our formulation captures contributions to the conductance dispersion due to conductance changes during the mechanical elongation inherent to the experiments. In turn, the histogram shape is determined by the non-equilibrium stochastic features of junction rupture and formation. The microscopic parameters in the theory capture the junction’s electromechanical properties and can be isolated from separate conductance and rupture force (or junction-lifetime) measurements. The predicted behavior can be used to test the range of validity of the theory, understand the conductance histograms, design molecular junction experiments with enhanced resolution and molecular devices with more reproducible conductance properties.
Funder
National Science Foundation
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Chemistry,Multidisciplinary
Reference88 articles.
1. Elke, S. & Carlos, C. J. Molecular Electronics: An Introduction to Theory and Experiment, volume 15. (World Scientific, 2017).
2. Datta, S. Quantum Transport: Atom to Transistor. (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
3. Nitzan, A. Chemical Dynamics in Condensed Phases: Relaxation, Transfer and Reactions in Condensed Molecular Systems. (Oxford University Press, 2006).
4. Coropceanu, V. et al. Charge transport in organic semiconductors. Chem. Rev. 107, 926–952 (2007).
5. Nitzan, A. & Ratner, M. A. Electron transport in molecular wire junctions. Science 300, 1384–1389 (2003).
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献