The purpose of this study is the assessment of the properties of deposited atomic chains. Therefore linear chains of covalent and metallic atoms, i.e. As and Ag, deposited onto monolayer SA steps of the Si(100) surface have been considered. The study is based on a simple semi-empirical Hamiltonian, used for the evaluation of both the electronic structure and the conductance, and the calculations analyze the binding energies of chains of a variable length deposited onto steps in the light of the analogous energy of free-standing chains and of chains deposited onto the flat Si(100) surface. This comparison shows that the stability of the chain has a primary dependence on the type of the substrate, rather than on the chain length and composition, and increases in the order: free standing, deposited onto SA, deposited onto Si(100). The central result of the calculations of the conductance is that the dependence of this quantity on the chain length and composition and on the type of substrate parallels the one of the binding energy.
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