Eur. Phys. J. B 2, 293-299 (1998)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050252

Comparison of tunneling through molecules with Mott-Hubbard and with dimerization gaps

Laboratoire de Physique Quantique, Université Paul Sabatier, 31062 Toulouse, France

Corresponding author: ^a favand@irsamc2.ups-tlse.fr

Received: 17 November 1997
Revised: 16 January 1998
Accepted: 16 January 1998
Published online: 15 April 1998

Abstract

In order to study the tunneling of electrons through an interacting, 1D, dimerized molecule connected to leads, we consider the persistent current in a ring embedding this molecule. We find numerically that, for spinless fermions, a molecule with a gap mostly due to interactions, i.e. a Mott-Hubbard gap, gives rise to a larger persistent current than a molecule with the same gap, but due only to the dimerization. In both cases, the tunneling current decreases exponentially with the size of the molecule, but more slowly in the interacting case. Implications for molecular electronic are briefly discussed.