Vibrational assisted conduction in a molecular wire

Abstract

We present a detailed study of the conduction properties of a molecular wire where hopping processes between electronic sites are coupled to a vibrational mode of the molecule. The latter is sandwiched between two electronic leads at finite temperatures. We show that the electro-mechanical coupling can lead to a strong enhancement of the lead-to-lead conduction. Moreover, under suitable driving of the molecular vibrational mode, the device can act as a transistor passing sharply from enhanced conduction to short-circuit configuration.

10 pages with appendix and 5 figures