Mechanisms for electron transport in atomic-scale one-dimensional wires: soliton and polaron effects

Abstract

We study one-electron tunneling through atomic-scale one-dimensional wires in the presence of coherent electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling. We use a full quantum model for the e-ph interaction within the wire with open boundary conditions. We illustrate the mechanisms of transport in the context of molecular wires subject to boundary conditions imposing the presence of a soliton defect in the molecule. Competition between polarons and solitons in the coherent transport is examined. The transport mechanisms proposed are generally applicable to other one-dimensional nanoscale systems with strong e-ph coupling.

7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Europhys. Lett

References in corpus (1)

• Does Luttinger liquid behaviour survive in an atomic wire on a surface?

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• Non-equilibrium transport with self-consistent renormalised contacts for a single-molecule nanodevice with electron-vibron interaction
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