Jump-to-contact process

An electrochemically assisted jump-to-contact process has also been applied in the development of a modified STM-BJ approach by fhe present author s group [70]. This technique has the advantage that it allows the construction of chemically well-defined, atomic-size contacts, and is possible with both chemically active and/or soft metals. The metal contacts created in this way have been confirmed as having a well-defined structure, suitable for studying the mechanical properties of the nanocontacts [62, 71]. As in the conventional STM-BJ approach, the pair of metal electrodes created after breaking the contact provides the electrodes to construct metal-molecule-metal molecular junctions. These improvements have extended the capability of conventional STM-BJ to create a variety of metal nanocontacts and single-molecule junctions beyond the Au-molecule-Au junctions. 

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