The work conducted by IFIMAC researchers analyzed the electron transport through a metal-protein-metal junction based on the blue-copper azurin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The exact nature of the transport mechanism through this system has been the subject of a long-standing debate. This study compared two different transport mechanisms. It revealed that hopping through a single site can lead to either higher or lower current values compared to fully coherent transport.This depends on the structural details of the junctions as well as the energetic alignment of the protein orbitals. It was also shown that, under specific conditions, a hopping transport mechanism is consistent with a fairly low temperature dependence of the current. Moreover, increasing the number of hopping sites leads to higher hopping currents. [Full article]
