1204.4023 (Ioan Baldea)

Extending the Newns-Anderson model to molecules with floppy degrees of
freedom. Validation by electronic structure calculations    [PDF]

Ioan Baldea

In cases where reorganization is important, present theoretical studies of molecular transport have inherently to resort to models. The Newns-Anderson model is ubiquitous for this purpose but, to author's knowledge, attempts to validate/challenge this model by microscopic calculations are missing in the literature. In this work, results of electronic structure calculations are presented, which demonstrate that the conventional Newns-Anderson model fails to describe redox-active tunneling junctions of recent experimental interest. For the case considered, the ($4, 4^\prime$)-bipyridine molecule, the failure traces back to the floppy degree of freedom represented by the relative rotation of the two pyridine rings. Expressions that generalize the Newns-Anderson model are deduced, which include significant anharmonicities. These expressions can be straightforwardly utilized as input information in calculations of the partially coherent transport.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4023