  We present an original method to estimate the conductivity of a single
molecule anchored to nanometric-sized metallic electrodes, using a Mechanically
Controlled Break Junction (MCBJ) operated at room temperature in liquid. We
record the conductance through the metal / molecules / metal nanocontact while
keeping the metallic electrodes at a fixed distance. Taking advantage of
thermal diffusion and electromigration, we let the contact naturally explore
the more stable configurations around a chosen conductance value. The
conductance of a single molecule is estimated from a statistical analysis of
raw conductance and conductance standard deviation data for molecular contacts
containing up to 14 molecules. The single molecule conductance values are
interpreted as time-averaged conductance of an ensemble of conformers at
thermal equilibrium.
