Tuning the conductivity along atomic chains by selective chemisorption

Adsorption of Au on vicinal Si(111) surfaces results in growth of long-range ordered metallic quantum wires. In this paper, we utilized site-specific and selective adsorption of oxygen to modify chemically the transport via different channels in the systems Si(553)-Au and Si(557)-Au. They were analyzed by electron diffraction and four-tip STM-based transport experiments. Modeling of the adsorption process by density functional theory shows that the adatoms and rest atoms on Si(557)-Au provide energetically favored adsorption sites, which predominantly alter the transport along the wire direction. Since this structural motif is missing on Si(553)-Au, the transport channels remain almost unaffected by oxidation.