Influence of relativistic effects on the contact formation of transition metals

Abstract

Our analysis of the contact formation processes undergone by Au, Ag and Cu nanojunctions, reveals that the distance at which the two closest atoms on a pair of opposing electrodes jump into contact is, on average, two times longer for Au than either Ag or Cu. This suggests the existence of a longer range interaction between those two atoms in the case of Au, a result of the significant relativistic energy contributions to the electronic structure of this metal, as confirmed by ab initio calculations. Once in the contact regime, the differences between Au, Ag and Cu are subtle, and the conductance of single-atom contacts for metals of similar chemical valence is mostly determined by geometry and coordination.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Formation of a Metallic Contact: Jump to Contact Revisited
• Single atom adhesion in optimized gold nanojunctions
• Modeling Single Molecule Junction Mechanics as a Probe of Interface Bonding
• The role of first neighbors geometry in the electronic and mechanical properties of atomic contacts

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Electron and Cooper pair transport across a single magnetic molecule explored with a scanning tunneling microscope
• Peculiar atomic bond nature in platinum monatomic chains
• The role of first neighbors geometry in the electronic and mechanical properties of atomic contacts
• Probing Metal-Molecule Contact at the Atomic Scale via Conductance Jump
• Dynamic bonding influenced by the proximity of adatoms to one-atom high step edges
• Mechanisms of jump to contact and conductance plateau formation in copper atomic junctions in vacuum and aqueous environments