Interference Blockade in the Conductance of Organic Molecules

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The conductance of cis/trans isomers of stilbene molecules connected to armchair single wall carbon nanotubes is studied in the Landauer formalism combined with a density-functional based approach. For a given arrangement of the electrodes, dramatic differences in the transmission between both isomers are found. For a given isomer, the conductance can be varied by orders of magnitude by changing the molecule-electrode relative orientation. Both effects can be explained by a simple, physically transparent interference rule, which suggests a straightforward conductance control in such molecular systems by different switching mechanisms.