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Design Rules for Open-Shell Molecular Wires: Insights from Correlated Many-Body Transport
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Design Rules for Open-Shell Molecular Wires: Insights from Correlated Many-Body Transport

Mehrdad Shiri, Leopoldo Mejía, Ignacio Franco, Thorsten Hansen and Kun Wang
Nano letters, Vol.26(31)
2026-07-27
PMID: 42525472

Abstract

Open-shell molecular wire Density matrix renormalization group Molecular electronics SSH-Hubbard model Long-range charge transport Correlated transport
Open-shell π-conjugated systems have emerged as promising molecular wires that can sustain unusually high low-bias conductance over tens of nanometers. However, predictive design rules remain limited because near-degeneracy and spin polarization give rise to correlated electronic states that are not reliably captured by standard density functional theory and Landauer transport descriptions. Here, we establish physically transparent design rules for long-range, weakly length-dependent charge transport based on the interplay between bond-length alternation and electron-electron interactions. Using a fully correlated transport framework that combines density matrix renormalization group calculations with nonequilibrium Green's function embedding, we show that weak dimerization maintains spatially extended edge states, while moderate on-site interaction stabilizes open-shell character without excessively separating transport-relevant resonances. This balance yields zero-bias transmission that is largely insensitive to molecular length, providing a route to connect chemically tunable structure to correlated transport beyond mean-field descriptions.
url
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6c02096View
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