Breaking Force and Conductance of Gold Nanojunctions: Effect of Humidity.
Forces acting on elongated gold nanojunctions and their electric conductance were simultaneously measured by current-sensing force spectroscopy in an atmosphere with controlled humidity. The breaking force of "thick" nanojunctions with conductance >20G0 is not affected by the environmental humidity. The presence of ambient water stabilizes "thin" nanojunctions with conductance <15G0, whose breaking force of 10-15 nN was higher than that in a dry atmosphere due to the capillary forces. The observed effect of humidity would not be possible to distinguish by techniques measuring only forces or only conductance in nanojunctions.
†Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Miklós
M
Mohos
†Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Ilya V
IV
Pobelov
†Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.|‡J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of ASCR, v.v.i., Dolejškova 3, 18223 Prague, Czech Republic.
Viliam
V
Kolivoška
†Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.|¶Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), Magyar tudósok körútja 2, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Gábor
G
Mészáros
†Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Peter
P
Broekmann
†Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Thomas
T
Wandlowski
adhesion; break junction; breaking force; current sensing atomic force microscopy; humidity; metal nanocontacts; nanoscale conductance