Reversed Conductance Decay of 1D Topological Insulators by Tight-Binding Analysis

Reversed conductance decay describes increasing conductance of a molecular chain series with increasing chain length. Realizing reversed conductance decay is an important step toward making long and highly conducting molecular wires. Recent work has shown that one-dimensional topological insulators (1D TIs) can exhibit reversed conductance decay due model for 1D TIs relates to the electronic structure of these isolated molecules but not their electron transport properties as single-molecule junctions. Herein, we use a tight-binding approach to demonstrate that polyacetylene and other diradicaloid 1D TIs show a reversed conductance decay at the short chain limit. We explain these conductance trends by analyzing the impact of the edge states in these 1D systems on the single-molecule junction transmission. Additionally, we discuss how the self-energy from the electrode-molecule coupling and the on-site energy of the edge sites can be tuned to create longer wires with reversed conductance decays.

Automated summary

This study investigates the conductance properties of 1D TIs such as polyacetylene using a tight-binding approach and discovers the phenomenon of reversed conductance decay in the short chain limit. The impact of edge states on the transmission of single-molecule junctions is analyzed to explain this conductance trend, and methods for tuning the self-energy and on-site energy of edge sites to create longer wires with reversed conductance decays are proposed.