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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. B » Volume 67 » Issue 12
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Phys. Rev. B 67, 121407(R) (2003) [4 pages]

Single-channel transmission in gold one-atom contacts and chains

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G. Rubio-Bollinger1, C. de las Heras1, E. Bascones2,3,*, N. Agraït1, F. Guinea2, and S. Vieira1
1Instituto Universitario de Ciencia de Materiales “Nicolás Cabrera,” Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
2Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, CSIC, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
3Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

Received 19 December 2002; published 25 March 2003

We induce superconductivity by proximity effect in thin layers of gold and study the number of conduction channels which contribute to the current in one-atom contacts and atomic wires. The atomic contacts and wires are fabricated with a scanning tunneling microscope. The set of transmission probabilities of the conduction channels is obtained from the analysis of the I(V) characteristic curve which is highly nonlinear due to multiple Andreev reflections. In agreement with theoretical calculations, we find that there is only one channel that is almost completely open.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.67.121407
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.67.121407
PACS:
73.40.-c, 73.20.-r, 73.50.-h

*Present address: Theoretische Physik, ETH-Hönggerberg, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.

 
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