IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v8y2017i1d10.1038_ncomms15931.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dynamic breaking of a single gold bond

Author

Listed:
  • Ilya V. Pobelov

    (University of Bern)

  • Kasper Primdal Lauritzen

    (Nano-Science Center and Department of Chemistry)

  • Koji Yoshida

    (University of Bern)

  • Anders Jensen

    (Nano-Science Center and Department of Chemistry)

  • Gábor Mészáros

    (University of Bern
    Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

  • Karsten W. Jacobsen

    (Technical University of Denmark)

  • Mikkel Strange

    (Nano-Science Center and Department of Chemistry
    Technical University of Denmark)

  • Thomas Wandlowski

    (University of Bern)

  • Gemma C. Solomon

    (Nano-Science Center and Department of Chemistry)

Abstract

While one might assume that the force to break a chemical bond gives a measure of the bond strength, this intuition is misleading. If the force is loaded slowly, thermal fluctuations may break the bond before it is maximally stretched, and the breaking force will be less than the bond can sustain. Conversely, if the force is loaded rapidly it is more likely that the maximum breaking force is measured. Paradoxically, no clear differences in breaking force were observed in experiments on gold nanowires, despite being conducted under very different conditions. Here we explore the breaking behaviour of a single Au–Au bond and show that the breaking force is dependent on the loading rate. We probe the temperature and structural dependencies of breaking and suggest that the paradox can be explained by fast breaking of atomic wires and slow breaking of point contacts giving very similar breaking forces.

Suggested Citation

  • Ilya V. Pobelov & Kasper Primdal Lauritzen & Koji Yoshida & Anders Jensen & Gábor Mészáros & Karsten W. Jacobsen & Mikkel Strange & Thomas Wandlowski & Gemma C. Solomon, 2017. "Dynamic breaking of a single gold bond," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-6, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15931
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15931
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15931
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms15931?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leopoldo Mejía & Pilar Cossio & Ignacio Franco, 2023. "Microscopic theory, analysis, and interpretation of conductance histograms in molecular junctions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Takaaki Sato & Zachary B. Milne & Masahiro Nomura & Naruo Sasaki & Robert W. Carpick & Hiroyuki Fujita, 2022. "Ultrahigh strength and shear-assisted separation of sliding nanocontacts studied in situ," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15931. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.