Journal article · Preprint article
Vibrationally mediated control of single-electron transmission in weakly coupled molecule-metal junctions
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.
Language: | English |
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Year: | 2010 |
ISSN: | 1550235x , 10980121 and 01631829 |
Types: | Journal article and Preprint article |
DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevB.81.115443 |
ORCIDs: | Olsen, Thomas and Schiøtz, Jakob |