Calibration of the length of a chain of single gold atoms.pdf

a r X i v : c o n d - m a t / 0 2 0 2 3 4 9 v 2 [ c o n d - m a t .m e s - h a l l ] 1 9 A u g 2 0 0 2 Calibration of the length of a chain of single gold atoms C. Untiedt1, A. I. Yanson1, R. Grande2, G. Rubio-Bollinger2, N. Agra??t2, S. Vieira2 and J.M. van Ruitenbeek1 1Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratorium, Leiden University, PO Box 9504, NL-2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands 2Laboratorio de Bajas Temperaturas, Departamento de F??sica de la Materia Condensada C-III, Universidad Auto?noma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain (Dated: February 6, 2008) Using a scanning tunnelling microscope or mechanically controllable break junction it has been shown that it is possible to control the formation of a wire made of single gold atoms. In these experiments an interatomic distance between atoms in the chain of ～ 3.6 A? was reported which is not consistent with recent theoretical calculations. Here, using precise calibration procedures for both techniques, we measure the length of the atomic chains. Based on the distance between the peaks observed in the chain length histogram we find the mean value of the interatomic distance before chain rupture to be 2.5 ± 0.2 A? . This value agrees with the theoretical calculations for the bond length. The discrepancy with the previous experimental measurements was due to the presence of He gas, that was used to promote the thermal contact, and which affects the value of the work function that is commonly used to calibrate distances in scanning tunnelling microscopy and mechanically controllable break junctions at low temperatures. INTRODUCTION In the last few years, there has been a significant ad- vance in the understanding of the electronic properties of atomic-sized contacts. This has been possible thanks to the use of two techniques: the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM)[1, 2] and the mechanically control- lable break junction (MCBJ)[3]. In both cases the dis- tance between two electrodes is controlled by means of a piezo-electric tra