Using remarkably simple experimental techniques it is possible to gently break a metallic
contact and thus form conducting nanowires. During the last stages of the pulling a neck …

A few years after the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), the atomic force
microscope (AFM) was developed. 1 Instead of measuring tunneling current, a new physical …

We describe an ab initio method for calculating the electronic structure, electronic transport,
and forces acting on the atoms, for atomic scale systems connected to semi-infinite …

A large variety of nanometre-scale devices have been investigated in recent years,,,,,, that
could overcome the physical and economic limitations of current semiconductor devices. To …

As the scale of microelectronic engineering continues to shrink, interest has focused on the
nature of electron transport through essentially one-dimensional nanometre-scale channels …

Thermal transport in individual atomic junctions and chains is of great fundamental interest
because of the distinctive quantum effects expected to arise in them. By using novel, custom …

Thin films are often grown away from thermodynamic equilibrium and their morphology
becomes determined by kinetics. The final structure of the epitaxial film is decided in the very …

THE properties and potential applications of carbon nanotubes filled with other materials
have aroused much speculation1–5. Strategies for filling nanotubes include in situ growth in …

Polymer electrolytes consist of salts dissolved in polymers (for example, polyethylene oxide,
PEO), and represent a unique class of solid coordination compounds. They have potential …

A mechanically controllable break junction (MCBJ) represents a fundamental technique for
the investigation of molecular electronic junctions, especially for the study of the electronic …