Extracting the Transport Channel Transmissions in Scanning Tunneling Microscopy using the Superconducting Excess Current

Abstract

Transport through quantum coherent conductors, like atomic junctions, is described by the distribution of conduction channels. Information about the number of channels and their transmission can be extracted from various sources, such as multiple Andreev reflections, dynamical Coulomb blockade, or shot noise. We complement this set of methods by introducing the superconducting excess current as a new tool to continuously extract the transport channel transmissions of an atomic scale junction in a scanning tunneling microscope. In conjunction with ab initio simulations, we employ this technique in atomic aluminum junctions to determine the influence of the structure adjacent to the contact atoms on the transport properties.

8 pages, 9 figures, including supporting information

References in corpus (3)

• Cluster-based density-functional approach to quantum transport through molecular and atomic contacts
• Formation of a Metallic Contact: Jump to Contact Revisited
• Distribution of conduction channels in nanoscale contacts: Evolution towards the diffusive limit

Cited by in corpus (5)

• How cold is the junction of a millikelvin scanning tunnelling microscope?
• Quantum transport properties of tantalum-oxide resistive switching filaments
• Control of Andreev Reflection via a Single-Molecule Orbital
• Superconducting junctions with flat bands
• Generalization of the Landauer-Büttiker theory onto the case of dissipative contacts