ABSTRACT

Conductance in molecular wire junctions — the passing of current between two electrodes through a molecular bridge — is overviewed. This is the simplest problem in molecular electronics, but it contains much of the richness that molecular circuits and molecular electronics in general imply. The discussion is based on use of a scattering formalism to calculate charge transport between electrodes. Specific topics include quantized conductance, coherent and incoherent limits of charge transport, incoherent hopping, comparison with electron transfer measurements, and more complex junction structures.