We have applied the elastic-scattering Green's function theory to study the coherent electron transportation processes in both metal-alkanedithiol-metal (gold-[S(CH2)(n)S]-gold, n = 8-14) and metal-alkanemonothiol-metal (gold-[H(CH2)(n)S]-gold, n = 814) at the hybrid density functional theory level. It is shown that the current decreases exponentially with the molecular length. At the low temperature limit the electron decay rate, beta, for alkanedithiol junction is found to be around 0.30/CH2 at 1.0 V bias, much smaller than the calculated value of 0.60/CH2 for alkanemonothiol junction. The decay rate for alkanedithiol junction at the room temperature is neither sensitive to the activation of the Au-S stretching vibrational mode nor to the external bias. The calculated current-voltage characteristics and decay rates for both junctions are in excellent agreement with the corresponding experimental results. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.