Electromigration-induced directional steps towards the formation of single atomic Ag contacts

• Atasi Chatterjee,
• Christoph Tegenkamp and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 680–687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.55

• break junctions (MCBJ), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and electromigration (EM). All these techniques rely on conductance histograms as a statistical tool in order to find the configurations of high stability. Conductance histograms provide information about the most probable conductance values

Molecular attachment to a microscope tip: inelastic tunneling, Kondo screening, and thermopower

• Rouzhaji Tuerhong,
• Mauro Boero and
• Jean-Pierre Bucher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1243–1250, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.124

• similar to the mechanical break junctions [9][10][11][12], but with a much better control of the location, number and nature of the molecules. Transition-metal phthalocyanines with a magnetic center represent a family of simple and robust molecules well suited to study tunable magnetic interactions on

Copper atomic-scale transistors

• Fangqing Xie,
• Maryna N. Kavalenka,
• Moritz Röger,
• Daniel Albrecht,
• Hendrik Hölscher,
• Jürgen Leuthold and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 530–538, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.57

• copper atomic-scale point contacts have been fabricated as mechanically controllable break junctions (MCBJ) [42][43][44][45], by using scanning probe microscopy (SPM) with a conductive tip [46][47], or electrochemical techniques [24][25][26][48][49]. Copper is an interconnection material in ultra-large

First-principles study of the structure of water layers on flat and stepped Pb electrodes

• Xiaohang Lin,
• Ferdinand Evers and
• Axel Groß

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 533–543, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.47

• liquid on properties of the metal [1]. The importance of understanding the electrochemical behavior of electrode and electrolyte near the interfaces is well illustrated by two recent examples. (i) In recent experiments on molecular break junctions it was found that certain molecules (methyl-sulfide

Rigid multipodal platforms for metal surfaces

• Michal Valášek,
• Marcin Lindner and
• Marcel Mayor

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 374–405, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.34

• junctions are based on either electrochemical break junctions [13][14][15] or mechanically controlled break junctions (MCBJ) [7] as well as on scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) [9][16][17]. The ultimate goal of molecular electronics is to use assemblies of molecules or even single molecules as functional

Evidence for non-conservative current-induced forces in the breaking of Au and Pt atomic chains

• Carlos Sabater,
• Carlos Untiedt and
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2338–2344, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.241

• model calculations and the comparison between experiment and theory is very encouraging for the interpretation we propose. Keywords: atomic chain; atomic-size contacts; break junctions; current-induced forces; Introduction One of the great promises of nanotechnology is the prospect of constructing

Conductance through single biphenyl molecules: symmetric and asymmetric coupling to electrodes

• Karthiga Kanthasamy and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1690–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.171

• conductive properties of individual molecular groups. Keywords: biphenyl; metallic break junctions; molecular conductance; Introduction The ultimate goal of molecular electronics is to implement single molecules as active functional elements in future electronic devices such as amplifiers, rectifiers

• at and above 1G0 may still be governed by direct metallic contacts, contacts at much smaller conductance must be formed by single (or few) molecules and are characteristic for bond formation by mercapto and nitrile end groups. This behavior is not unexpected, since the shape of break junctions is not

• observed in the terphenyl dithiol molecule [48]. For the M2 molecule, the fluctuation is small, possibly due to additional stability originating from the nitrogen bond to undercoordinated Au atoms [20]. In a recent experiment using electromigrated break junctions with gold electrodes [32] the stable

Electrical properties and mechanical stability of anchoring groups for single-molecule electronics

• Riccardo Frisenda,
• Simge Tarkuç,
• Elena Galán,
• Mickael L. Perrin,
• Rienk Eelkema,
• Ferdinand C. Grozema and
• Herre S. J. van der Zant

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1558–1567, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.159

• ) break junctions. These create and displace atomic-sized electrodes so that reproducibly single-molecule junctions are formed [4][5][6][7]. In the past years it has been shown that the electronic properties of single-molecule junctions depend both on the molecular core and on the interfaces between

• with DFT, falls between 1.7 nm and 2.0 nm. The observed displacement is smaller than the DFT values and should be corrected to include the instantaneous gap formation in gold break junctions estimated in literature to be close to 0.5 nm [43]. The length obtained by adding this value to the experimental

Electron and heat transport in porphyrin-based single-molecule transistors with electro-burnt graphene electrodes

• Hatef Sadeghi,
• Sara Sangtarash and
• Colin J. Lambert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1413–1420, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.146

• ][7]. Transport in single-molecule FETs is mostly dominated by the contacts between the electrodes and molecules, which is an obstacle to achieving reproducibility and stability. Furthermore, in laboratory-based conductance measurements (using, for example, mechanically-controlled break junctions

Alternative types of molecule-decorated atomic chains in Au–CO–Au single-molecule junctions

• Zoltán Balogh,
• Péter Makk and
• András Halbritter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1369–1376, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.141

• break junctions. The conductance histogram exhibits two distinct molecular configurations, which are further investigated by a combined statistical analysis. According to conditional histogram and correlation analysis these molecular configurations show strong anticorrelations with each other and with

• of our experimental technique is introduced in our previous publication [27]. We have performed our measurements on one break-junctions sample that was measured for several weeks as follows. In order to exclude unwanted contamination we have a very strict protocol for this type of measurement. First

Electroburning of few-layer graphene flakes, epitaxial graphene, and turbostratic graphene discs in air and under vacuum

• Andrea Candini,
• Nils Richter,
• Domenica Convertino,
• Camilla Coletti,
• Franck Balestro,
• Wolfgang Wernsdorfer,
• Mathias Kläui and
• Marco Affronte

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 711–719, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.72

• to be overcome, in particular how to embed nano-scale objects such as a single molecule in electronic circuits in a reliable way suitable for the mass production of devices [4]. Besides scanning probe techniques [5], to date the most popular approaches are mechanically controllable break junctions [6

Current–voltage characteristics of single-molecule diarylethene junctions measured with adjustable gold electrodes in solution

• Bernd M. Briechle,
• Youngsang Kim,
• Philipp Ehrenreich,
• Artur Erbe,
• Dmytro Sysoiev,
• Thomas Huhn,
• Ulrich Groth and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 798–808, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.89

• ], molecular networks with nanoparticle electrodes [18], atomic force microscope (AFM) [22], and carbon-nanotube electrode [23] techniques, as well as structural studies using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) [24][25] have been performed successfully. In addition, mechanically controlled break-junctions

X-ray spectroscopy characterization of self-assembled monolayers of nitrile-substituted oligo(phenylene ethynylene)s with variable chain length

• Hicham Hamoudi,
• Ping Kao,
• Alexei Nefedov,
• David L. Allara and
• Michael Zharnikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 12–24, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.2

• properties of several potential molecular wires, including alkyl, oligophenyl, and oligo(phenylene ethynylene) (OPE) chains have been studied by a variety of different techniques including, for example, conducting-probe mercury drops [3][4][5], break junctions [6][7][8][9][10][11], scanning-microscopy tips

Lifetime analysis of individual-atom contacts and crossover to geometric-shell structures in unstrained silver nanowires

• Christian Obermair,
• Holger Kuhn and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 740–745, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.81

• mechanical strain, this explains the observation that electrochemically deposited silver junctions exhibit a dominance of geometric-shell effects beginning at much lower conductance levels or contact radii than in corresponding experiments with mechanical break junctions, leading to a crossover as early as 6

• G0, as compared to 15 G0 and 22 G0 [23] in the case of mechanical break junctions. Calvo et al. [28] found indications of shell effects in electrochemically deposited Au contacts but reported unstable contacts in the region below 20 G0. Compared to their experiments, electrochemically deposited

An MCBJ case study: The influence of π-conjugation on the single-molecule conductance at a solid/liquid interface

• Wenjing Hong,
• Hennie Valkenier,
• Gábor Mészáros,
• David Zsolt Manrique,
• Artem Mishchenko,
• Alexander Putz,
• Pavel Moreno García,
• Colin J. Lambert,
• Jan C. Hummelen and
• Thomas Wandlowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 699–713, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.76

• ) [13][15][16][33][34][35][36], crossed-wire geometry [37], nanoparticle junctions [38][39], mechanically controlled break junctions (MCBJ) [40][41][42][43][44][45], electromigration setups [46][47], nanopores [48], and liquid metal junctions employing mercury [49][50] or eutectic alloys of gallium and

Transport through molecular junctions

• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 691–692, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.74

• a setup based on a scanning tunnelling microscope. Alternatively, this can be achieved by mechanically controllable break junctions. A third, widely used method employs breaking of a thin wire by electromigration. Many methods have been explored for introducing the molecules into the junction, but