Vibrationally mediated control of single-electron transmission in weakly coupled molecule-metal junctions
- Authors:
- DOI:
- 10.1103/physrevb.81.115443
- Abstract:
- We propose a mechanism which allows one to control the transmission of single electrons through a molecular junction. The principle utilizes the emergence of transmission sidebands when molecular vibrational modes are coupled to the electronic state mediating the transmission. We will show that if a molecule-metal junction is biased just below a molecular resonance, one may induce the transmission of a single electron by externally exciting a vibrational mode of the molecule. The analysis is quite general but requires that the molecular orbital does not hybridize strongly with the metallic states. As an example we perform a density-functional theory analysis of a benzene molecule between two Au(111) contacts and show that exciting a particular vibrational mode can give rise to transmission of a single electron.
- Type:
- Journal article
- Language:
- English
- Published in:
- Physical Review B Condensed Matter, 2010, Vol 81, Issue 11
- Keywords:
- Main Research Area:
- Science/technology
- Publication Status:
- Published
- Review type:
- Peer Review
- Submission year:
- 2010
- Scientific Level:
- Scientific
- ID:
- 11503610
0000-0001-6256-9284
