39 research outputs found
Tunable Fano resonance in a parallelly coupled diatomic molecular transistor
We investigate electron transport through a diatomic molecule parallelly
coupled to infinite source and drain contacts. We utilize a model Hamiltonian
involving a Hubbard term in which the contacts are modeled using recently
developed complex source and sink potentials. The zero bias transmission
spectrum for a symmetrically coupled system as a function of the Fermi energy
acquires a Fano lineshape as the Hubbard interaction is turned on. For large
values of , the Fano lineshape broadens and shifts to higher energy values
disappearing eventually. Meanwhile, the Breit-Wigner resonance located at the
bonding resonance in the noninteracting limit survives but its position is
shifted twice the coupling between the atoms in the molecule in the infinite
limit and its linewidth is reduced to half. We attribute this behaviour to
the unavailability of one of the transmission channels due to Coulomb blockade.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Carbon nanotube, graphene, nanowire, and molecule-based electron and spin transport phenomena using the non-equilibrium Green function method at the level of first principles theory
Based on density functional theory (DFT), we have developed algorithms and a
program code to investigate the electron transport characteristics for a
variety of nanometer scaled devices in the presence of an external bias
voltage. We employed basis sets comprised of linear combinations of numerical
type atomic orbitals and k-point sampling for the realistic modeling of the
bulk electrode. The scheme coupled with the matrix version of the
non-equilibrium Green function method enables determination of the transmission
coefficients at a given energy and voltage in a self-consistent manner, as well
as the corresponding current-voltage (I-V) characteristics. This scheme has
advantages because it is applicable to large systems, easily transportable to
different types of quantum chemistry packages, and extendable to describe
time-dependent phenomena or inelastic scatterings. It has been applied to
diverse types of practical electronic devices such as carbon nanotubes,
graphene nano-ribbons, metallic nanowires, and molecular electronic devices.
The quantum conductance phenomena for systems involving quantum point contacts
and I-V curves are described for the dithiol-benzene molecule in contact with
two Au electrodes using the k-point sampling method.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures. submitte
Highly Conducting pi-Conjugated Molecular Junctions Covalently Bonded to Gold Electrodes
We measure electronic conductance through single conjugated molecules bonded
to Au metal electrodes with direct Au-C covalent bonds using the scanning
tunneling microscope based break-junction technique. We start with molecules
terminated with trimethyltin end groups that cleave off in situ resulting in
formation of a direct covalent sigma bond between the carbon backbone and the
gold metal electrodes. The molecular carbon backbone used in this study consist
of a conjugated pi-system that has one terminal methylene group on each end,
which bonds to the electrodes, achieving large electronic coupling of the
electrodes to the pi-system. The junctions formed with the prototypical example
of 1,4-dimethylenebenzene show a conductance approaching one conductance
quantum (G0 = 2e2/h). Junctions formed with methylene terminated oligophenyls
with two to four phenyl units show a hundred-fold increase in conductance
compared with junctions formed with amine-linked oligophenyls. The conduction
mechanism for these longer oligophenyls is tunneling as they exhibit an
exponential dependence of conductance with oligomer length. In addition,
density functional theory based calculations for the Au-xylylene-Au junction
show near-resonant transmission with a cross-over to tunneling for the longer
oligomers.Comment: Accepted to the Journal of the American Chemical Society as a
Communication
Green function techniques in the treatment of quantum transport at the molecular scale
The theoretical investigation of charge (and spin) transport at nanometer
length scales requires the use of advanced and powerful techniques able to deal
with the dynamical properties of the relevant physical systems, to explicitly
include out-of-equilibrium situations typical for electrical/heat transport as
well as to take into account interaction effects in a systematic way.
Equilibrium Green function techniques and their extension to non-equilibrium
situations via the Keldysh formalism build one of the pillars of current
state-of-the-art approaches to quantum transport which have been implemented in
both model Hamiltonian formulations and first-principle methodologies. We offer
a tutorial overview of the applications of Green functions to deal with some
fundamental aspects of charge transport at the nanoscale, mainly focusing on
applications to model Hamiltonian formulations.Comment: Tutorial review, LaTeX, 129 pages, 41 figures, 300 references,
submitted to Springer series "Lecture Notes in Physics
Comparison of the temporal release pattern of copeptin with conventional biomarkers in acute myocardial infarction
Background Early detection of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) using cardiac biomarkers of myocardial necrosis remains limited since these biomarkers do not rise within the first hours from onset of AMI. We aimed to compare the temporal release pattern of the C-terminal portion of provasopressin (copeptin) with conventional cardiac biomarkers, including creatine kinase isoenzyme (CK-MB), cardiac troponin T (cTnT), and high-sensitivity cTnT (hs-cTnT), in patients with ST-elevation AMI. Methods We included 145 patients undergoing successful primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for a first ST-elevation AMI presenting within 12 h of symptom onset. Blood samples were taken on admission and at four time points within the first 24 h after PCI. Results In contrast to all other markers, copeptin levels were already elevated on admission and were higher with a shorter time from symptom onset to reperfusion and lower systolic blood pressure. Copeptin levels peaked immediately after symptom onset at a maximum of 249 pmol/L and normalized within 10 h. In contrast, CK-MB, cTnT, and hs-cTnT peaked after 14 h from symptom onset at a maximum of 275 U/L, 5.75 lg/L, and 4.16 lg/L, respectively, and decreased more gradually. Conclusions Copeptin has a distinct release pattern in patients with ST-elevation AMI, peaking within the first hour after symptom onset before conventional cardiac biomarkers and falling to normal ranges within the first day. Further studies are required to determine the exact role of copeptin in AMI suspects presenting within the first hours after symptom onset
GPAW: open Python package for electronic-structure calculations
We review the GPAW open-source Python package for electronic structure
calculations. GPAW is based on the projector-augmented wave method and can
solve the self-consistent density functional theory (DFT) equations using three
different wave-function representations, namely real-space grids, plane waves,
and numerical atomic orbitals. The three representations are complementary and
mutually independent and can be connected by transformations via the real-space
grid. This multi-basis feature renders GPAW highly versatile and unique among
similar codes. By virtue of its modular structure, the GPAW code constitutes an
ideal platform for implementation of new features and methodologies. Moreover,
it is well integrated with the Atomic Simulation Environment (ASE) providing a
flexible and dynamic user interface. In addition to ground-state DFT
calculations, GPAW supports many-body GW band structures, optical excitations
from the Bethe-Salpeter Equation (BSE), variational calculations of excited
states in molecules and solids via direct optimization, and real-time
propagation of the Kohn-Sham equations within time-dependent DFT. A range of
more advanced methods to describe magnetic excitations and non-collinear
magnetism in solids are also now available. In addition, GPAW can calculate
non-linear optical tensors of solids, charged crystal point defects, and much
more. Recently, support of GPU acceleration has been achieved with minor
modifications of the GPAW code thanks to the CuPy library. We end the review
with an outlook describing some future plans for GPAW
Density functional theory based screening of ternary alkali-transition metal borohydrides: A computational material design project
The dissociation of molecules, even the most simple hydrogen molecule, cannot be described accurately within density functional theory because none of the currently available functionals accounts for strong on-site correlation. This problem led to a discussion of properties that the local Kohn-Sham potential has to satisfy in order to correctly describe strongly correlated systems. We derive an analytic expression for the nontrivial form of the Kohn-Sham potential in between the two fragments for the dissociation of a single bond. We show that the numerical calculations for a one-dimensional two-electron model system indeed approach and reach this limit. It is shown that the functional form of the potential is universal, i.e., independent of the details of the two fragments.We acknowledge funding by the Spanish MEC (Grant No. FIS2007-65702-C02-01), “Grupos Consolidados UPV/EHU del Gobierno Vasco” (Grant No. IT-319-07), and the European Community through e-I3 ETSF project (Grant Agreement No. 211956).Peer reviewe