ELECTRONIC CONDUCTANCE AND CURRENT DISTRIBUTION OF A PENTACENE MOLECULAR TAP

Abstract

The electronic conductance characteristics of a pentacene molecular tap has been investigated theoretically by a Green's function approach based on an empirical tight-binding theory in which only one π orbital electron per carbon atom is considered. The quantum transmission probability for electrons through the pentacene tap from an input to three other outputs is obtained. A strong dependence of the transmission probability on the incident electron energy and the molecular energy levels is evident for all three input–output combinations. The electronic current distributions inside the pentacene tap are calculated by a current density method based on the Fisher–Lee formula for two electron energies (E = ± 0.68 and ±1.31 eV) at which the transmission spectra peaks. The current distributions are in good agreement with the Kirchhoff quantum current momentum conservation law.