Formation and self-breaking mechanism of stable atom-sized junctions.
basic_science · Level V
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Abstract
The self-breaking mechanism of gold junctions is studied by investigating stability of the atom-sized contacts. The single atom contact lifetime increases from about 0.02 to 200 s upon decreasing the junction stretching speed, while at the same time, the breaking force diminishes logarithmically. We find that the junction self-breaking processes involve sufficient atomic rearrangements, which thereby allow complete self-compensation of externally introduced strain at 0.8 pm/s. The present results have important implications on fabrication of stable single molecule junctions.