Quantum interference effects in electron transport through nitrobenzene with pyridil anchor groups

TL;DR

This study uses DFT-NEGF calculations to analyze quantum interference effects in electron transport through nitrobenzene with pyridil anchors, revealing geometry-dependent conductance features and evaluating simple models for understanding QIE.

Contribution

It demonstrates how specific molecular geometries influence quantum interference effects and assesses the effectiveness of topological models in explaining these phenomena.

Findings

QIE dominates conductance in one planar geometry

Torsion angles shift QIE features to higher energies

Topological models can help interpret QIE physics

Abstract

We present density functional theory (DFT) based non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) calculations for the conductance through a nitrobenzene molecule, which is anchored by pyridil-groups to Au electrodes. This work is building up on earlier theoretical studies where quantum interference effects (QIE) have been identified both in qualitative tight binding and in DFT descriptions for the same molecule with different chemical connections to the leads. The novelty in the current contribution is two-fold: i) The pyridil-anchors guarantee for the conductance to be determined by rather narrow peaks situated closely to the Fermi energy which is relevant because it might maximize the impact of quantum interferences on the I/V behaviour. In a scan of eight different junction setups, where the connection sites of aromatic rings, their torsion angle with respect to each other and the surface structure have been varied, QIE was found to dominate the conductance for only one planar geometry. For finite torsion angles between aromatic rings the effect moves to higher energies and would therefore only be accessible for experimental observation in a gated junction. ii) A detailed comparison between simple topological models and DFT results for the investigated systems aims at assessing the usefulness of such models as analysis tools for a better understanding of the physics of QIE and its structure dependence.