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Conductance enlargement in picoscale electroburnt graphene nanojunctions

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

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  • Hatef Sadeghi
  • Jan A. Mol
  • Chit Siong Lau
  • G. Andrew D. Briggs
  • Jamie Warner
  • Colin J. Lambert
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Article number201418632
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>3/03/2015
<mark>Journal</mark>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Issue number9
Volume112
Number of pages6
Pages (from-to)2658-2663
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date17/02/15
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Provided the electrical properties of electroburnt graphene junctions can be understood and controlled, they have the potential to underpin the development of a wide range of future sub-10-nm electrical devices. We examine both theoretically and experimentally the electrical conductance of electroburnt graphene junctions at the last stages of nanogap formation. We account for the appearance of a counterintuitive increase in electrical conductance just before the gap forms. This is a manifestation of room-temperature quantum interference and arises from a combination of the semimetallic band structure of graphene and a cross-over from electrodes with multiple-path connectivity to single-path connectivity just before breaking. Therefore, our results suggest that conductance enlargement before junction rupture is a signal of the formation of electroburnt junctions, with a picoscale current path formed from a single sp2 bond.