This thesis reports transport in ultrathin single crystalline nanowires of gold (∼ 2nm). These nanowires were fabricated using an oriented attachment process whereby nanoparticles of appropriate dimensions join in a linear fashion to form long and stable wires. The main motivation was to study the role of electron-electron interactions on the transport mechanism in case of a metallic system, as one approaches dimensions closer to the Fermi wavelength. The study forms the first of its kind in a simple metallic system of this dimension. Indeed, several new features have been obtained in this regard: Chapter 4 reports a breakdown of Fermi liquid state in such a system opening up possibilities of exotic states constituted by a strongly correlated Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. We report consistent scaling of current-voltage curves, characteristic of such a phase and even resonant tunneling in such structures. The study reports the first observation of a correlated electron liquid in a metal, which has been observed only in semiconductors and polymer wires till date. Chapter 5 discusses the possibility of tuning the transport mechanism in these wires via a controlled change in the growth process. We show that using appropriate growth mechanisms, we can have a localized ground state as well, where variable range hopping is the dominant transport mechanism. Possibility of structural transitions in ultrathin wires is a field that has garnered considerable interest due to simulations. We present a highly sensitive tool in the form of electrical noise and its higher order statistics that can act as a detector of structural transitions. This has been thoroughly studied in case of conventional shape memory systems in Chapter 6. Preliminary noise studies on the nanowires have been reported in Chapter 7.

The constant trend of device miniaturization along with ever-growing list of unusual behaviour of nanoscale materials has fuelled the recent research in fabrication and applications of ultrathin (~2 nm diameter) nanowires. Although semiconductor nanowires of this dimension is well-researched, molecular-scale single-crystalline metal nanowires have not been addressed in details. Such single crystalline Au nanowires are formed by oriented attachment of Au nanoparticles along [111] direction. A very low concentration of extended defects in these wires result in a high electrical conductivity, making them ideal for nanoscale interconnects. Other metal nanowires, e.g. Ag and Cu, have very low absorption co-efficient useful for fabrication of transparent conducting films. On the other hand, because of the reduced dimensions, there exists a tantalizing possibility of dominating quantum effects leading to their application in sensing and actuation. Also, speaking in terms of atomic structure, these systems suffer from intense surface stress, and the atomistic picture can be drastically different from bulk. Thus, although a myriad of applications are possible with ultrathin metal nanowires, a rigorous systematic knowledge of their atomic and electronic structure is not yet available. This thesis is the first one to model such computationally demanding systems with emphasis on their possible applications. In this thesis, we have explored various structural and electronic aspects of one-dimensional ultrathin nanowires with ab initio density functional theory coupled with experiments. The merit of Au nanowires has been tested as nanoscale interconnects. From atomistic point of view, these FCC Au nanowires exhibit an intriguing relaxation mechanism, which has been explored by both theory and experiment. The primary factor governing the relaxation mechanism was found to be the anisotropic surface stress of the bounding facets, and it is extended to explain the relaxation of other metallic nanowires. Our studies suggest that AuNWs of this dimension show semiconductor-like sensitivity towards small chemical analytes and can be used as nanoscale sensors. Also, we have found that further reducing the diameter of the Au-nanowires leads to opening of a band gap.