Atomic contacts has been used in experiments to investigate the effect in the simplest possible systems.

We all know that an electrical current in a conductor leads to Joule heating and atomic motion. However, this effect is not trivial to understand when looked upon from the atomic point of view. It is a topic of still increasing importance with the continuing shrinking of electronic components. If these eventually reach the scale of single molecules the position of the individual atoms can control the electronic performance. Therefore it is important to understand in detail what goes on at the atomic scale when a electrical current is present.       

Molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations where the motion of atoms is calculated using classical dynamics (Newtons equations) may well turn out to play an important role for our understanding and design of such systems. However, there are no well established methods to perform MD simulations in the presence of electrical current. This is a topic of intense research world-wide.

In this project you will implement and use the classical Langevin equation (Newtons equations with friction and fluctuating forces) to simulate some of the effects of the electronic current on the atomic dynamics in simple model atomic contact systems (see Figure). The main part of the project will be to write a computer code (e.g. in matlab or mathematica) and to obtain results for atomic dynamics with it.