Universal features of electron-phonon interactions in atomic wires

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical analysis showing that electron-phonon interactions in atomic wires exhibit universal behavior, affecting conductance in predictable ways depending on transmission, with a crossover from conductance reduction to enhancement.

Contribution

It introduces a universal model describing electron-phonon effects in atomic wires, highlighting a crossover in conductance behavior based on transmission levels.

Findings

Universal functions describe electron-phonon effects across systems.

Conductance reduction near perfect transmission.

Conductance enhancement at low transmission.

Abstract

The effect of electron-phonon interactions in the conductance through metallic atomic wires is theoretically analyzed. The proposed model allows to consider an atomic size region electrically and mechanically coupled to bulk electrodes. We show that under rather general conditions the features due to electron-phonon coupling are described by universal functions of the system transmission coefficients. It is predicted that the reduction of the conductance due to electron-phonon coupling which is observed close to perfect transmission should evolve into an enhancement at low transmission. This crossover can be understood in a transparent way as arising from the competition between elastic and inelastic processes.