Probing electronic excitations in molecular conduction

Author

• Bhaskaran Muralidharan, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Network for Computational Nanotechnology, Purdue UniversityFollow
• A. W. Ghosh, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia
• Supriyo Datta, Network for Computational Nanotechnology, Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue UniversityFollow

Abstract

We identify experimental signatures in the current-voltage I-V characteristics of weakly contacted molecules directly arising from excitations in their many electron spectrum. The current is calculated using a multielectron master equation in the Fock space of an exact diagonalized model many-body Hamiltonian for a prototypical molecule. Using this approach, we explain several nontrivial features in frequently observed I-Vs in terms of a rich spectrum of excitations that may be hard to describe adequately with standard one-electron self-consistent field theories.

Citation

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.73.155410

Date of this Version

April 2006

Recommended Citation

Muralidharan, Bhaskaran; Ghosh, A. W.; and Datta, Supriyo, "Probing electronic excitations in molecular conduction" (2006). Birck and NCN Publications. Paper 188.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/nanopub/188