Probing the rupture of a Ag atomic junction in a Ag-Au mixed electrode

Abstract

We probed that the atomic junction in Ag part ruptures during stretching of atomic sized contacts of Ag-Au mixed electrodes, resulting in Ag-Ag electrodes through a scanning tunneling microscope breaking junction (STM-BJ) technique. We observed that the conductance and tunneling decay constant for a series of amine-terminated oligophenyl molecular junctions are essentially the same for the Ag-Au mixed and the Ag-Ag electrodes. We also found the molecular plateau length and the evolution patterns with the Ag-Au mixed electrodes are similar to those with Ag-Ag electrodes rather than the Au-Au electrodes in the molecular junction elongation. This result is attributed to the smaller binding energy of Ag atoms compared to that of Au atoms, so the Ag junction part is more easily broken than that of Au part in stretching of Ag-Au mixed electrodes. Furthermore, we successfully observed that the rupture force of the atomic junction for the Ag-Au mixed electrodes was identical to that for the Ag-Ag electrodes and smaller than that for the Au-Au electrodes. This study may advance the understanding of the electrical and the mechanical properties in molecular devices with Ag and Au electrodes in future.