Electronic Transport Calculations Using Maximally-Localized Wannier Functions

I present a method to calculate the ballistic transport properties of atomic-scale structures under bias. The electronic structure of the system is calculated using the Kohn-Sham scheme of density functional theory (DFT). The DFT eigenvectors are then transformed into a set of maximally localized Wannier functions (MLWFs) [N. Marzari and D. Vanderbilt, Phys. Rev. B 56 (1997) 12847]. The MLWFs are used as a minimal basis set to obtain the Hamitonian matrices of the scattering region and the adjacent leads, which are needed for transport calculation using the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. The coupling of the scattering region to the semi-infinite leads is described by the self-energies of the leads. Using the nonequilibrium Green's function method, one calculates self-consistently the charge distribution of the system under bias and evaluates the transmission and current through the system. To solve the Poisson equation within the scheme of MLWFs I introduce a computationally efficient method. The method is applied to a molecular hydrogen contact in two transition metal monatomic wires (Cu and Pt). It is found that for Pt the I-V characteristics is approximately linear dependence, however, for Cu the I-V characteristics manifests a linear dependence at low bias voltages and exhibits apparent nonlinearity at higher bias voltages. I have also calculated the transmission in the zero bias voltage limit for a single CO molecule adsorbed on Cu and Pt monatomic wires. While a chemical scissor effect occurs for the Cu monatomic wire with an adsorbed CO molecule, it is absent for the Pt monatomic wire due to the contribution of d-orbitals at the Fermi energy. (condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties)