2003/11/30 by A. Halbritter, Sz. Csonka, G. Mihály +3
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.69.121411
published as Phys. Rev. B 69, 121411(R) (2004) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2004/02/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
The conductance of breaking metallic nanojunctions shows plateaus alternated with sudden jumps, corresponding to the stretching of stable atomic configurations and atomic rearrangements, respectively. We investigate the structure of the conductance plateaus both by measuring the voltage dependence of the plateaus' slope on individual junctions and by a detailed statistical analysis on a large amount of contacts. Though the atomic discreteness of the junction plays a fundamental role in the evolution of the conductance, we find that the fine structure of the conductance plateaus is determined by quantum interference phenomenon to a great extent.