Electron-vibration interaction in single-molecule junctions: From contact to tunneling regimes

Point contact spectroscopy on a H(2)O molecule bridging Pt electrodes reveals a clear crossover between enhancement and reduction of the conductance due to electron-vibration interaction. As single-channel models predict such a crossover at a transmission probability of tau=0.5, we used shot noise measurements to analyze the transmission and observed at least two channels across the junction where the dominant channel has a tau=0.51 +/- 0.01 transmission probability at the crossover conductance, which is consistent with the predictions for single-channel models.