Abstract
We study a Co-benzene sandwich molecule bridging the tips of a Cu nanocontact as a realistic model of correlated molecular transport. To this end we employ a recently developed method for calculating the correlated electronic structure and transport properties of nanoscopic conductors. When the molecule is slightly compressed by the tips of the nanocontact the dynamic correlations originating from the strongly interacting Co shell give rise to an orbital Kondo effect while the usual spin Kondo effect is suppressed due to Hund’s rule coupling. This nontrivial Kondo effect produces a sharp and temperature-dependent Abrikosov-Suhl resonance in the spectral function at the Fermi level and a corresponding Fano line shape in the low bias conductance.
- Received 24 May 2011
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.146604
© 2011 American Physical Society