Phonon Interference Effects in Molecular Junctions

Abstract

We study coherent phonon transport through organic, π-conjugated molecules. Using first principles calculations and Green's function methods, we find that the phonon transmission function in cross-conjugated molecules, like meta-connected benzene, exhibits destructive quantum interference features very analogous to those observed theoretically and experimentally for electron transport in similar molecules. The destructive interference features observed in four different cross-conjugated molecules significantly reduce the thermal conductance with respect to linear conjugated analogues. Such control of the thermal conductance by chemical modifications could be important for thermoelectric applications of molecular junctions.

10 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Heat dissipation in atomic-scale junctions
• Optimal thermoelectric figure of merit of a molecular junction
• Violation of the Wiedemann-Franz Law in a Single-Electron Transistor
• Giant Thermoelectric Effect from Transmission Supernodes
• Interfacial thermal transport in atomic junctions
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• Quantum phonon transport of molecular junctions amide-linked with carbon nanotubes: a first-principle study

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• Vibrational Heat Transport in Molecular Junctions
• Mechanical Tuning of Thermal Transport in a Molecular Junction
• Tuning the thermal conductance of molecular junctions with interference effects
• Designing $\pi$-stacked molecular structures to control heat transport through molecular junctions
• Thermal bridging of graphene nanosheets via covalent molecular junctions. a Non-Equilibrium Green Functions Density Functional Tight-Binding study
• Transmission eigenchannels for coherent phonon transport
• Interference enhanced thermoelectricity in quinoid type structures
• Interplay between electron-electron and electron-vibration interactions on the thermoelectric properties of molecular junctions
• Geometry-based circulation of local thermal current in quantum harmonic and Bose Hubbard systems
• Electrode effects on the observability of destructive quantum interference in single-molecule junctions
• Interplay of electron and phonon channels in the refrigeration through molecular junctions
• Revealing molecule-internal mechanisms that control phonon heat transport through single-molecule junctions by a genetic algorithm