Are Short Molecules Quantum Dot Arrays?

We point out that single electron charging effects such as Coulomb Blockade (CB) play an important role in transport through single molecules. Our Coulomb Blockade treatment for transport through benzene molecule employs a full Configuration Interaction (CI) approach starting with an appropriate mean field Hamiltonian. This approach can explain a whole class of non-trivial experimental features including vanishing zero bias conductance, most of which cannot be captured even qualitatively within the usual Self Consistent Field (SCF) approach.