The effective mass of an electron when tunneling through a molecular wire

Observed from the electrodes, the electronic tunnel transport regime though a molecular wire is described by a generalized non-parabolic dispersion relationship. The calculation of the complex-band structure of a molecular wire leads to an analytical expression for the effective mass m* of a tunneling electron through this wire. m* is calculated for different molecular wires and compared to the ones of standard solid state tunnel junction. In the tunneling regime, the conductance optimization of a molecular wire depends equally on this m* and on its homo-lumo gap. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.