A mechanically controllable break junction setup was designed, constructed and characterized. The mechanically controllable break junction technique is commonly used for measurement of quantum conductance of metals and single molecule conductance. The technique relies on resistance to external vibrations disrupting the atomic or molecular junctions formed and should be in a low electronic noise environment. Through a series of experiments the setup was found to have high mechanical stability and low electronic noise. The quantum conductance of gold was measured repeatedly and a histogram was plotted showing good agreement with the literature. The results indicate that with modifications, the setup can be used to measure the conductance of single molecule junctions and single molecule thermoelectric properties.

The aim of my Thesis was to develop a general synthetic methodology for the preparation of long helicenes equipped with suitable functional groups that control their solubility or serve as anchoring groups for attachment to metallic surfaces, especially gold. The well-established transition metal catalyzed [2+2+2] cyclotrimerization of triynes was selected as the key scaffold-forming transformation in the synthesis of long helicenes because of its high regioselectivity, atom efficiency, functional group tolerance and general robustness. A modular approach was used for the preparation of the starting oligoynes, thus enabling a high level of their structural diversity. Individual resorcinol- based aromatic building blocks were interconnected by Sonogashira cross-coupling reactions, providing complex cyclization precursors encompassing up to twelve alkyne units pre-arranged for the multiple [2+2+2] cycloisomerization to produce three six- membered rings from each set of three neighboring alkyne units. Thus, a small series of long helicenes with up to 19 rings constituting the helical scaffold was synthesized. The quadruple cyclization leading to the longest oxahelicene prepared to date was performed in a high-temperature-high-pressure flow reactor at 250 řC in the presence of CpCo(CO)2. The set of...

In our pursuit of ever smaller transistors, with greater computational throughput, many questions arise about how material properties change with size, and how these properties may be modelled more accurately. Metallic nanocontacts, especially those for which magnetic properties are important, are of great interest due to their potential spintronic applications. Yet, serious challenges remain from the standpoint of theoretical and computational modelling, particularly with respect to the coupling of the spin and lattice degrees of freedom in ferromagnetic nanocontacts in emerging spintronic technologies. In this thesis, an extended method is developed, and applied for the first time, to model the interplay between magnetism and atomic structure in transition metal nanocontacts. The dynamic evolution of the model contacts emulates the experimental approaches used in scanning tunnelling microscopy and mechanically controllable break junctions, and is realised in this work by classical molecular dynamics and, for the first time, spin-lattice dynamics. The electronic structure of the model contacts is calculated via plane-wave and local-atomic orbital density functional theory, at the scalar- and vector-relativistic level of sophistication. The effects of scalar-relativistic and/or spin-orbit coupling on a number of emergent properties exhibited by transition metal nanocontacts, in experimental measurements of conductance, are elucidated by non-equilibrium Green’s Function quantum transport calculations. The impact of relativistic effects during contact formation in non-magnetic gold is quantified, and it is found that scalar-relativistic effects enhance the force of attraction between gold atoms much more than between between atoms which do not have significant relativistic effects, such as silver atoms. The role of non-collinear magnetism in the electronic transport of iron and nickel nanocontacts is clarified, and it is found that the most-likely conductance values reported for these metals, at first- and lastcontact, are determined by geometrical factors, such as the degree of covalent bonding in iron, and the preference of a certain crystallographic orientation in nickel. / Physics / Ph. D. (Physics)