No Arabic abstract
We analyze how functionality could be obtained within single-molecule devices by using a combination of non-equilibrium Greens functions and ab-initio calculations to study the inelastic transport properties of single-molecule junctions. First we apply a full non-equilibrium Greens function technique to a model system with electron-vibration coupling. We show that the features in the inelastic electron tunneling spectra (IETS) of the molecular junctions are virtually independent of the nature of the molecule-lead contacts. Since the contacts are not easily reproducible from one device to another, this is a very useful property. The IETS signal is much more robust versus modifications at the contacts and hence can be used to build functional nanodevices. Second, we consider a realistic model of a organic conjugated molecule. We use ab-initio calculations to study how the vibronic properties of the molecule can be controlled by an external electric field which acts as a gate voltage. The control, through the gate voltage, of the vibron frequencies and (more importantly) of the electron-vibron coupling enables the construction of functionality: non-linear amplification and/or switching is obtained from the IETS signal within a single-molecule device.
We study pentanedithiol molecular junctions formed by means of the break-junction technique with a scanning tunneling microscope at low temperatures. Using inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy and first-principles calculations, the response of the junction to elastic deformation is examined. We show that this procedure makes a detailed characterization of the molecular junction possible. In particular, our results indicate that tunneling takes place through just a single molecule.
We theoretically investigate quantum transport through single-molecule magnet (SMM) junctions with ferromagnetic and normal-metal leads in the sequential regime. The current obtained by means of the rate-equation gives rise to the tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance (TAMR), which varies with the angle between the magnetization direction of ferromagnetic lead and the easy axis of SMM. The angular dependence of TAMR can serve as a probe to determine experimentally the easy axis of SMM. Moreover, it is demonstrated that both the magnitude and sign of TAMR are tunable by the bias voltage, suggesting a promising TAMR based spintronic molecule-device.
The scanning-tunneling-microscope-induced luminescence emerges recently as an incisive tool to measure the molecular properties down to the single-molecule level. The rapid experimental progress is far ahead of the theoretical effort to understand the observed phenomena. Such incompetence leads to a significant difficulty in quantitatively assigning the observed feature of the fluorescence spectrum to the structure and dynamics of a single molecule. This letter is devoted to reveal the microscopic origin of the molecular excitation via inelastic scattering of the tunneling electrons in scanning tunneling microscope. The current theory explains the observed large photon counting asymmetry between the molecular luminescence intensity at positive and negative bias voltage.
In the present work, we theoretically analyze the steady-state thermoelectric transport through a single-molecule junction with a vibrating bridge. Thermally induced charge current in the system is explored using a nonequilibrium Greens functions formalism. We study combined effects of Coulomb interactions between charge carriers on the bridge and electron-phonon interactions on the thermocurrent beyond the linear response regime. It is shown that electron-vibron interactions may significantly affect both magnitude and direction of the thermocurrent, and vibrational signatures may appear.
We report results of theoretical studies of thermoelectric efficiency of single-molecule junctions with long molecular linkers. The linker is simulated by a chain of identical sites described using a tight-binding model. It is shown that thermoelectric figure of merit ZT strongly depends on the bridge length, being controlled by the lineshape of electron transmission function within the tunnel energy range corresponding to HOMO/LUMO transport channel. Using the adopted model we demonstrate that ZT may significantly increase as the linker lengthens, and that gateway states on the bridge (if any) may noticeably affect the length-dependent ZT. Temperature dependences of ZT for various bridge lengths are analyzed. It is shown that broad minima emerge in ZT versus temperature curves whose positions are controlled by the bridge lengths.