Phase-coherent electron transport through metallic atomic-sized contacts and organic molecules

This work is concerned with the theoretical description of systems at the nanoscale, in particular the electric current through atomic-sized metallic contacts and organic molecules. In the first part, the characteristic peak structure in conductance histograms of different metals is analyzed within a tight-binding model. In the second part, an ab-initio method for quantum transport is developed and applied to single-atom and single-molecule contacts.