title: Measurement of the conductance of a hydrogen molecule.
abstract: Recent years have shown steady progress towards molecular electronics, in which molecules form basic components such as switches, diodes and electronic mixers. Often, a scanning tunnelling microscope is used to address an individual molecule, although this arrangement does not provide long-term stability. Therefore, metal-molecule-metal links using break-junction devices have also been explored; however, it is difficult to establish unambiguously that a single molecule forms the contact. Here we show that a single hydrogen molecule can form a stable bridge between platinum electrodes. In contrast to results for organic molecules, the bridge has a nearly perfect conductance of one quantum unit, carried by a single channel. The hydrogen bridge represents a simple test system in which to understand fundamental transport properties of single-molecule devices.
authors.affiliation: Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratorium, Universiteit Leiden, PO Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: R H M
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Smit
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Noat
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Untiedt
authors.forename: N D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: van Hemert
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: van Ruitenbeek