Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 22: Transport: Poster Session

TT 22.35: Poster

Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 14:00–18:00, Poster B

Breakjunctions on Membranes — •Reimar Waitz, Olivier Schecker, and Elke Scheer — Universität Konstanz, Germany

A so-called "mechanically controlled breakjunction" is made of a metallic wire with a suspended constriction. This constriction can be elongated until having - just before breaking - a diameter of one atom. In this project we developed a new kind of breakjunctions on silicon membranes. The wire is made by electron-beam lithography on top of a 600x600 micrometer crystalline silicon membrane with a thickness of a few hundred nanometers. In contrast to the "standard" breakjunction technique, we use the strain of the membrane to control the elongation of the wire. In our poster we present the process of sample fabrication and a mechanism for controlled breaking, which has successfully been used to measure the conductance of single atom contacts.