Electric conductance of metal nanowires at mechanically controllable break junctions under electrochemical potential control

We have developed the mechanically controllable break junction setup with an electrochemical cell (EC–MCBJ) to measure the electric conductance of metal nanowires under electrochemical potential control. The electric conductance of Au nanowires was investigated in 0.1 M Na2SO4 solution using EC–MCBJ. The conductance of the Au nanowires was quantized in units of G0 (=2e2/h), showing clear features in the conductance histogram. The atomic contact with a specific conductance value was kept for >5 s, indicating the relatively high stability of the present EC–MCBJ system.