Vibronic effects on resonant electron conduction through single molecule junctions

Abstract

The influence of vibrational motion on electron conduction through single molecules bound to metal electrodes is investigated employing first-principles electronic-structure calculations and projection-operator Green's function methods. Considering molecular junctions where a central phenyl ring is coupled via (alkane)thiol-bridges to gold electrodes, it is shown that -- depending on the distance between the electronic $\pi$-system and the metal -- electronic-vibrational coupling may result in pronounced vibrational substructures in the transmittance, a significantly reduced current as well as a quenching of negative differential resistance effects.

Submitted to Chem. Phys. Lett. (13 pages, 5 figures) this version: typos and formating corrected

References in corpus (3)

• Franck-Condon blockade and giant Fano factors in transport through single molecules
• Modeling inelastic phonon scattering in atomic- and molecular-wire junctions
• Vibrational effects in laser driven molecular wires

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Inelastic effects in electron transport studied with wave packet propagation
• Electron-phonon bound states and impurity band formation in quantum wells