Effect of the band structure of the electrodes on the non-adiabatic electron tunneling through a one-level redox molecule

- The band structure effect on the non-adiabatic electron tunneling is considered.
- Expressions for different tunnel current/voltage characteristics are obtained.
- The appearance of the negative differential conductance is demonstrated.
- Amplification and rectification depend strongly on the electrode band structure.

Effect of the band structure of the electrodes having the relatively narrow density of states on the non-adiabatic electron tunneling (the weak tunneling limit) through a one-level redox molecule is considered. The differential conductance, amplification and rectification of the tunnel current are studied and calculated. It is shown that, for some narrow-band electrodes, the dependences of these tunnel current characteristics on the bias voltage differs essentially from those both for the vacuum tunneling contacts and the electrochemical tunneling contacts based on the wide-band electrodes. It is also shown that the band structure effects are of importance and can lead to a number of peculiarities in amplification and rectification of the tunnel current including the possibility to obtain the larger amplification and rectification as compared with those for the in situ tunneling contacts having the wide-band electrodes.