Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• van Ruitenbeek, J. M
• Smit, R. H. M
• Noat, Y
• Untiedt, C
• Lang, N. D
• van Hemert, M. C

Titel

Measurement of the conductance of a hydrogen molecule

Ist Teil von

• Nature (London), 2002-10, Vol.419 (6910), p.906-909

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2002

Quelle

PBSC : Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection - Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Recent years have shown steady progress towards molecular electronics, in which molecules form basic components such as switches, diodes and electronic mixers. Often, a scanning tunnelling microscope is used to address an individual molecule, although this arrangement does not provide long-term stability. Therefore, metal-molecule-metal links using break-junction devices have also been explored; however, it is difficult to establish unambiguously that a single molecule forms the contact. Here we show that a single hydrogen molecule can form a stable bridge between platinum electrodes. In contrast to results for organic molecules, the bridge has a nearly perfect conductance of one quantum unit, carried by a single channel. The hydrogen bridge represents a simple test system in which to understand fundamental transport properties of single-molecule devices.