Electronic transport of nitrogen-capped monoatomic carbon wires between lithium electrodes Original Research Article

Nitrogen (N)-capped single-atom carbon wires are chemisorbed onto two identical Li (1 1 1) electrodes to construct nanodevices. First-principles calculations predict that devices with even and odd numbers of carbon wires would show dramatically different and unexpected electronic transport properties. An even number of wires shows a metallic-like ballistic transport at low bias, a nonlinear current–voltage characteristic over the whole bias region, and a very striking negative differential resistance (NDR). An odd number of carbon wires shows the exact opposite behavior. Currents are very small and rise extreme slowly with bias, and no NDR is observed. The zero-bias conductance of an even number of carbon wires is rather high and reaches a value of about 20 times larger than that for an odd number of wires. These intriguing phenomena can be attributed to changes in the molecular states due to charge transfer doping.