Effect of wire configuration and point defects on the conductance of gold nano-conductors

Gold nanowire (NW) chains are considered a good candidate for nano-electronics devices because they exhibit remarkable structural and electrical properties. One promising nano-conductor candidate is called 'Hexa1'. It has a two-dimensional, one atom thick structure and was found to spontaneously form during simulations of gold NWs elongations. It is stable and a good conductor when adsorbed on a suitable substrate. In this study, we deepened the investigation of such a NW structure, to explore the effect of the NWs length, point defects and NW junctions on its conductance. We found that the conductance is not affected by the NW length, and that conveniently placed point defects can be used to create resistors. We also found that direction changes in circuits produce conductance bottle necks, therefore decreasing the conductance. However, this decrease can be easily overcome by adding a few atoms to the NW junction.