Electron correlations in transport through molecular junctions: Coulomb blockade and hysteresis in the I-V characteristics of a model system.

ORAL

Abstract

Electron-electron interaction effects can play a very important role in explaining the mechanism of charge transport in molecular junctions. We use a simple tight-binding model to describe the leads and the electron-ion interaction inside the molecule. The electron-electron interaction inside the molecule is treated at the Hartree-Fock level. We study the model as a function of the number of sites in the molecule and the alignment of molecular energy levels relative to the average chemical potential in the leads. This model captures important phenomena such as the Coulomb blockade. We find that depending on the gate voltage and applied bias, there can be more than one Hartree-Fock steady-state solution for the system, which may give rise to a hysteresis in the I-V characteristics.

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Authors

  • Catalin D. Spataru

    Columbia University

  • Mark Hybertsen

    Brookhaven National Lab, Brookhaven National Laboratory

  • Andrew Millis

    Columbia University, Columbia University, 538 West, 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA, Department of Physics, Columbia University

  • Steven Louie

    Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Dept of Physics UC Berkeley, The Molecular Foundry LBNL, Mat Sci Div LBNL, Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley and Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley \& Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, and Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory