Invited talk

Quantum-interference-enhanced thermoelectricity in single molecule junctions

Colin Lambert

Department of Physics, Lancaster University, UK

Although the dream of manipulating quantum interference in single molecules has been discussed for many years, experimental evidence of the effect of quantum interference on the room-temperature electrical conductance of single-molecules was reported only recently [1].

In this talk, I will present a brief outline of recent advances in our understanding of quantum interference in single-molecules [2] and then discuss how quantum interference can be exploited to increase the thermoelectric performance of single molecules [3] and assemblies of molecules connected to nano-gap electrodes.

[1] J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 11426, (2011); Nature Nano. 7, 305 (2012); Nat. Nano. 7, 663 (2012); Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 056801 (2012); Nano. Lett. 6, 1643-1647 (2012); J. Am. Chem. Soc. 134, 5262 (2012); Beilstein J. Nanotech. 2, 699 (2011) and refs. therein.

[2] C. J. Lambert, Chem. Soc. Rev. 44, 875-888 (2015); Y. Geng et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 137, 4469 (2015); Sangtarash et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 137, 11425 (2015); D. Manrique, et al., Nature Comm. 6, 6389 (2015); Berritta et al, Nanoscale 7, 1096 (2015).

[3] Evangeli et al., Nano Lett. 13, 2141-2145 (2013); Garcia-Suarez et al., Nanotechnology 25, 205402 (2014); Rincón-García et al., Nature Mat. 15, 289 (2016); Sadeghi et al., Nano Lett. October (2015) DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b03033; Ismael et al., Nanoscale 7 17338 (2015).