Electric-field control of a single-atom polar bond
arXiv:2105.03234 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.216801
Abstract
The polar covalent bond between a single Au atom terminating the apex of an atomic force microscope tip and a C atom of graphene on SiC(0001) is exposed to an external electric field. For one field orientation the Au-C bond is strong enough to sustain the mechanical load of partially detached graphene, whilst for the opposite orientation the bond breaks easily. Calculations based on density functional theory and nonequilibrium Green's function methods support the experimental observations by unveiling bond forces that reflect the polar character of the bond. Field-induced charge transfer between the atomic orbitals modifies the polarity of the different electronegative reaction partners and the Au-C bond strength.
References in corpus (19)
- The SIESTA method for ab initio order-N materials simulation
- Efficient index handling of multidimensional periodic boundary conditions
- Density functional method for nonequilibrium electron transport
- Improvements on non-equilibrium and transport Green function techniques: the next-generation transiesta
- Origins of anomalous electronic structures of epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide
- The origin of high-resolution IETS-STM images of organic molecules with functionalized tips
- Atom Transfer and Single-Adatom Contacts
- Bistability and oscillatory motion of natural nano-membranes appearing within monolayer graphene on silicon dioxide
- Origin Of Current-Induced Forces In An Atomic Gold Wire: A First Principles Study
- Structural and electronic properties of Li intercalated graphene on SiC(0001)
- Manipulating the voltage drop in graphene nanojunctions using a gate potential
- Li-intercalated Graphene on SiC(0001): an STM study
- Interatomic force laws that corrupt their own measurement
- Quantized Conductance of a Single Magnetic Atom
- Understanding and engineering phonon-mediated tunneling into graphene on metal surfaces
- Multi-scale approach to first-principles electron transport beyond 100 nm
- Removing all periodic boundary conditions: Efficient non-equilibrium Green function calculations
- Current-induced atomic forces in gated graphene nanoconstrictions
- Ab-initio calculation of the real contact area on the atomic scale