Indication of Complete Spin Filtering in Atomic-Scale Nickel Oxide.

Generating highly spin-polarized currents at the nanoscale is essential for spin current manipulations and spintronic applications. We find indications for up to 100% spin-polarized currents across nickel oxide atomic junctions formed between two nickel electrodes. The degree of spin polarization is probed by analyzing the shot noise resulting from the discrete statistics of spin-polarized electron transport.

Probing the orbital origin of conductance oscillations in atomic chains.

We investigate periodical oscillations in the conductance of suspended Au and Pt atomic chains during elongation under mechanical stress. Analysis of conductance and shot noise measurements reveals that the oscillations are mainly related to variations in a specific conduction channel as the chain undergoes transitions between zigzag and linear atomic configurations. The calculated local electronic structure shows that the oscillations originate from varying degrees of hybridization between the atomic orbitals along the chain as a function of the zigzag angle.