Sub-Poissonian Shot Noise in Molecular Wires

TL;DR

This paper studies electron transport and shot noise in polyene molecular wires, revealing a transition from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian noise with increasing voltage, and provides a method for designing low-noise molecules.

Contribution

It demonstrates a cross-over from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian shot noise in molecular wires and introduces an algorithm for low-noise molecule design.

Findings

Noise power decreases with molecule size.

Current-voltage curves can be asymmetric despite symmetric contacts.

Shot noise exhibits a transition from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian behavior.

Abstract

We investigate the transport behavior of polyene molecules sandwiched between two metallic contacts using the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism. We calculate both current and noise power as a function of applied voltage and show that they decrease with increasing size of the polyene molecules. We find that even with symmetric connection to metallic contacts, current verus voltage curves can be asymmetric for asymmetrically substituted polyenes. Most importantly, we demonstrate a cross-over from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian behavior in the shot noise as a function of applied voltage. The algorithm for noise power calculation can be used for designing molecules with low noise.