Molecular Aharonov-Bohm Interferometers Based on Porphyrin Nanorings

A goal of molecular electronics and spintronics is to create molecular devices that change their conductance in response to external stimuli. The Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect implies that an electronic device formed from a quantum ring and metallic leads will exhibit such behavior under external magnetic fields. At first sight, it appears that unrealistically large fields would be required to significantly alter the conductance of a molecular ring. However, the sensitivity of a molecular AB interferometer to magnetic fields can be increased by weakening the coupling between the molecular ring and the metallic leads. An ideal molecular ring for an AB interferometer has a large radius (to access a larger portion of the full AB cycle), and a small effective mass (high electron mobility) to enhance its response to magnetic fields. Here, we use computational modelling to demonstrate that recently synthesized porphyrin nanorings, with radii of 2–9 nm, could behave as molecular AB interferometers at achievable magnetic field strengths (5–10 T), if weak ring-lead coupling is used. Building on our recently developed semi-empirical approach, which incorporates the effects of finite magnetic fields on the electronic structure, we develop a transport computational platform that allows us to identify sharp Fano resonances in the transmittance probability of porphyrin nanorings that could be exploited to control the current with an applied magnetic field. These resonances are rationalized in terms of a magnetic field-induced delocalization of the molecular orbitals. Our findings indicate that molecular AB interferometry should be feasible with current experimental capabilities.