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Shuttling electrons with nanoparticlesAndriy Moskalenko (Bath) Wednesday, 9 May 2007, 16.30, W2.19
R. French, F. Marken and P. R. Raithby Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY We present experimental studies of “shuttle” transport in nanoscale electromechanical devices. The idea of electron shuttling was introduced by L.Y.Gorelik et al [1]. The key element of such devices is a “shuttle”-junction consisting of a metallic nanoparticle embedded between two electrodes and connected to them by two elastic molecules. When a bias voltage is applied to the junction, the nanoparticle starts bouncing between the electrodes, shuttling electrons from one electrode to the other. The “shuttle” mechanism is predicted to manifest itself as a current jump when the applied bias voltage exceeds the critical voltage required for the nanocluster to start vibrating. In order to investigate this mechanism of electron transport we fabricated a number of shuttle-junctions. We used electron-beam lithography to pattern gold electrodes with the gaps of 10-30 nm. The role of “shuttles” was played by 20 nm gold nanoparticles. They were coated with a monolayer of organic ligands of different length and elasticity that enabled us to vary the spring constant of the nanooscillator. Embedding of the nanoparticles between the electrodes was performed using nanomanipulation by a specially designed for this purpose AFM probe. Measurements of current-voltage characteristics on the assembled nanodevices are presented. 1. L.Y.Gorelik, A. Isacsson, M.V.Voinova, B.Kasemo, R.I.Shekhter, and M.Jonson. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80 (1998) 4526. |
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