When Electron Transfer Meets Electron Transport in Redox-Active Molecular Nanojunctions

A scanning electrochemical microscope (SECM) was used to arrange two microelectrodes face-to-face separated by a micrometric gap. Polyaniline (PANI) was deposited electrochemically from the SECM tip side until it bridged the two electrodes. The junctions obtained were characterized by following the current through the PANI as a function of its electrochemical potential measured versus a reference electrode acting as a gate electrode in a solid-state transistor. PANI nanojunctions showed conductances below 100 nS in the oxidized state, indicating control of the charge transport within the whole micrometric gap by a limited number of PANI wires. The SECM configuration makes it possible to observe in the same experiment and in the same current range the electron-transfer and electron-transport processes. These two phenomena are distinguished here and characterized by following the variation of the current with the bias voltage and the scan rate. The electron-transfer current changes with the scan rate, while the charge-transport current varies with the bias voltage. Finally, despite the initially micrometric gap, a junction where the conductance is controlled by a single oligoaniline strand is achieved

Electrochemical Fabrication of Highly Stable Redox-Active Nanojunctions

Redox-gated molecular junctions were obtained starting with a relatively large gap between two electrodes, in the micrometer range, followed by electrochemical polymerization of aniline. Polyaniline (PANI) grows from the tip side until it bridges the two electrodes. The resulting junctions were characterized electrochemically by following the variation of the tip–substrate current as a function of the electrochemical gate potential for various bias voltages and by recording their I(V) characteristics. The two electrodes make contact through PANI wires, and microjunctions with conductances around 10–3 S were obtained. On the basis of a similar setup, PANI nanojunctions with conductances between 10–7 and 10–8 S were made, where the current appears to be controlled by fewer than 10 oligoaniline strands. Despite the small number of strands connecting the two electrodes, the junctions are highly stable even when several successive potential sweeps are performed. Comparison of the conductance measured in the oxidized and reduced states leads to an on/off ratio of about 70–100, which is higher than that reported for a single aniline heptamer bridging two electrodes, highlighting the interest of connecting a few tens of molecules using the scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) configuration. In some cases, the switching of the PANI takes place in several individual conductance steps close to that obtained for a single oligoaniline. Finally, starting with a microjunction and mechanically withdrawing the tip shrinks it down to the nanometer scale and makes it possible to reach the regime where the conductance is controlled by a limited number of strands. This work presents an easy method for making redox-gated nanojunctions and for probing the conductance of a few oligoanilines despite an initially large tip–substrate gap