Eur. Phys. J. B 68, 111-117 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2009-00072-0

Conductance through analytic constrictions

¹ Nanoscience Center, P.O. Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
² Department of Physics, P.O. Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
³ Department of Chemistry, P.O. Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland

Corresponding author: ^a daniela.koudela@gmx.de

Received: 27 August 2008
Revised: 28 January 2009
Published online: 3 March 2009

Abstract

We study the dependence of the intrinsic conductance of a nanocontact on its shape by using the recursion-transfer-matrix method. Hour-glass, torus, and spherical shapes are defined through analytic potentials, the latter two serving as rough models for ring-like and spherical molecules, respectively. The sensitivity of the conductance to geometric details is analyzed and discussed. Strong resonance effects are found for a spherical contact weakly coupled to electron reservoirs.