Interaction of hydrogen with metallic nanojunctions

Abstract

We study the behavior of hydrogen molecules between atomic-sized metallic electrodes using the mechanically controllable break junction technique. We focus on the interaction H2 with monoatomic gold chains demonstrating the possibility of a hydrogen molecule being incorporated in the chain. We also show that niobium is strongly reactive with hydrogen, which enables molecular transport studies between superconducting electrodes. This opens the possibility for a full characterization of the transmission properties of molecular junctions with superconducting subgap structure measurements. © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd.