Precursor configurations, molecule assisted chain formation, and post-rupture evolution in metal-carbon monoxide-metal single molecule junctions
We have investigated the interaction of CO molecules with various metals (Au, Ag and Pt) applying the mechanically controllable break junction technique. This method provides a huge statistical ensemble of opening and closing conductance traces. In our analysis we go beyond the basic method of conductance histograms: we use plateaus’ length histograms, two dimensional conductance trace histograms, and we apply two dimensional correlation histograms for data analysis. The combination of these techniques with different selection methods and the comparison of the results with ab initio simulations provide us a robust tool to gain relatively detailed information about the junction evolution. We demonstrate precursor molecular configurations (Au-CO and Ag-CO), molecule assisted chain formation (Pt-CO and Au-CO) and we study the post-rupture evolution of the molecular junctions (Ag-CO).