First-Principles Study on Electron Conduction Property of Monatomic Sodium Nanowire

Abstract

We present first-principles calculations of electron conduction properties of monatomic sodium wires suspended between semi-infinite crystalline electrodes, using the overbridging boundary-matching method. We find that the conductances oscillate depending on the number of atoms in the wire, N_atom. Furthermore, the values of conductances are ∼3 G₀ (G₀ = 2e²/h) for the closed packed structure and ∼1 G₀ for single-row wires, which is in agreement with the experimental results of the conductance histogram.