Preselectable integer quantum conductance of electrochemically fabricated silver point contacts

Journal Article · Mon Jul 28 04:00:00 EDT 2008 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2955521· OSTI ID:21124010

Xie, F -Q; Obermair, Ch ^[1]; Maul, R; Starikov, E B ^[2]; Brendelberger, S ^[1]; Wenzel, W ^[2]; Schoen, G ^[2]; Schimmel, Th ^[1]

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1. Institut fuer Angewandte Physik, Universitaet Karlsruhe, 76128 Karlsruhe (Germany)
2. Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institut fuer Nanotechnologie, 76021 Karlsruhe (Germany)

The controlled fabrication of well-ordered atomic-scale metallic contacts is of great interest: it is expected that the experimentally observed high percentage of point contacts with a conductance at noninteger multiples of the conductance quantum G{sub 0}=2e{sup 2}/h in simple metals is correlated to defects resulting from the fabrication process. Here we demonstrate a combined electrochemical deposition and annealing method that allows the controlled fabrication of point contacts with preselectable integer quantum conductance. The resulting conductance measurements on silver point contacts are compared with tight-binding-like conductance calculations of modeled idealized junction geometries between two silver crystals with a predefined number of contact atoms.

• OSTI ID: 21124010
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 93; ISSN APPLAB; ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ANNEALING
ELECTRIC CONTACTS
ELECTROCHEMISTRY
ELECTRODEPOSITION
FABRICATION
SILVER