Electrochemically fabricated nanometer-sized molecular junctions

This thesis describes the results of experimental work atomic contacts and on transport spectroscopy of atomic clusters and molecules. The motivation for this work was to get an experimental grip on the world of infinitely small objects made of a few atoms. This microscopic world has already been spatially mapped using powerful electron microscopes and scanning probes, which see beyond what can be discretized by visible light. Most of these imaging methods use electrons, either of high energy constrained in a narrow beam (electron microscopes), or of low energy when confined at the end of a solid probe (scanning tunneling microscopy). These electrons locally 'sense' the electronic cloud of the imaged atomic structures and the measurement of this interaction, point after point, is used to produce images with an atomic resolution.Y.V. Kervennic is the author of 'Electrochemically fabricated nanometer-sized molecular junctions', published 2004 under ISBN 9789040725135 and ISBN 9040725136.