Formation and Conductance of Cd and Ti Single-Atom Contacts at Room Temperature

Break junctions of some HCP metals are known to yield single-atom contacts (SACs) frequently at 4 K but rarely at room temperature (RT). In this work, we show that SACs of Cd and Ti can be produced at RT not by opening their junctions but by closing them. For both Cd and Ti, the conductance histogra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inE-journal of surface science and nanotechnology Vol. 12; pp. 1 - 5
Main Authors Horiuchi, Toshiki, Takahashi, Atsushii, Kurokawa, Shu, Sakai, Akira
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Tokyo The Japan Society of Vacuum and Surface Science 01.01.2014
Japan Science and Technology Agency
Subjects
Conductance
HCP metals
Single-atom contacts
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Summary:Break junctions of some HCP metals are known to yield single-atom contacts (SACs) frequently at 4 K but rarely at room temperature (RT). In this work, we show that SACs of Cd and Ti can be produced at RT not by opening their junctions but by closing them. For both Cd and Ti, the conductance histogram measured at junction closing reveals a clear SAC peak whereas the SAC peak appears marginal in the histogram obtained at junction opening. Because SACs are formed through necking deformations in the junction opening, while not in the junction closing, our observations suggest that the rare SAC formation reported for some HCP break junctions at RT would be due to necking deformations. The observed histograms also determine the hitherto unknown SAC conductance of Cd and Ti as 0.7G0 and 0.8G0, respectively. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2014.1]
ISSN:1348-0391
1348-0391
DOI:10.1380/ejssnt.2014.1