title: Revealing thermal effects in the electronic transport through irradiated atomic metal point contacts.
abstract: We report on the electronic transport through nanoscopic metallic contacts under the influence of external light fields. Various processes can be of relevance here, whose underlying mechanisms can be studied by comparing different kinds of atomic contacts. For this purpose two kinds of contacts, which were established by electrochemical deposition, forming a gate-controlled quantum switch (GCQS), have been studied. We demonstrate that in these kinds of contacts thermal effects resulting from local heating due to the incident light, namely thermovoltage and the temperature dependences of the electrical resistivity and the electrochemical (Helmholtz) double layer are the most prominent effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.
authors.forename: Bastian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kopp
authors.forename: Zhiwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Benner
authors.forename: Fang-Qing
authors.initials: FQ
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Obermair
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schimmel
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Boneberg
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Leiderer
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Scheer