117 research outputs found
Electronics and Chemistry: Varying Single Molecule Junction Conductance Using Chemical Substituents
We measure the low bias conductance of a series of substituted benzene
diamine molecules while breaking a gold point contact in a solution of the
molecules. Transport through these substituted benzenes is by means of
nonresonant tunneling or superexchange, with the molecular junction conductance
depending on the alignment of the metal Fermi level to the closest molecular
level. Electron-donating substituents, which drive the occupied molecular
orbitals up, increase the junction conductance, while electron-withdrawing
substituents have the opposite effect. Thus for the measured series,
conductance varies inversely with the calculated ionization potential of the
molecules. These results reveal that the occupied states are closest to the
gold Fermi energy, indicating that the tunneling transport through these
molecules is analogous to hole tunneling through an insulating film.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure
Impact of electrode density of states on transport through pyridine-linked single molecule junctions
We study the impact of electrode band structure on transport through
single-molecule junctions by measuring the conductance of pyridine-based
molecules using Ag and Au electrodes. Our experiments are carried out using the
scanning tunneling microscope based break-junction technique and are supported
by density functional theory based calculations. We find from both experiments
and calculations that the coupling of the dominant transport orbital to the
metal is stronger for Au-based junctions when compared with Ag-based junctions.
We attribute this difference to relativistic effects, which results in an
enhanced density of d-states at the Fermi energy for Au compared with Ag. We
further show that the alignment of the conducting orbital relative to the Fermi
level does not follow the work function difference between two metals and is
different for conjugated and saturated systems. We thus demonstrate that the
details of the molecular level alignment and electronic coupling in
metal-organic interfaces do not follow simple rules, but are rather the
consequence of subtle local interactions
Amine-Linked Single Molecule Circuits: Systematic Trends Across Molecular Families
A comprehensive review is presented of single molecule junction conductance
measurements across families of molecules measured while breaking a gold point
contact in a solution of molecules with amine end groups. A theoretical
framework unifies the picture for the amine-gold link bonding and the tunnel
coupling through the junction using Density Functional Theory based
calculations. The reproducible electrical characteristics and utility for many
molecules is shown to result from the selective binding between the gold
electrodes and amine link groups through a donor-acceptor bond to
undercoordinated gold atoms. While the bond energy is modest, the maximum force
sustained by the junction is comparable to, but less than, that required to
break gold point contacts. The calculated tunnel coupling provides conductance
trends for all 41 molecule measurements presented here, as well as insight into
the variability of conductance due to the conformational changes within
molecules with torsional degrees of freedom. The calculated trends agree to
within a factor of two of the measured values for conductance ranging from 10-7
G0 to 10-2 G0, where G0 is the quantum of conductance (2e2/h).Comment: Invited paper for forthcoming special issue of Journal of Physics:
Condensed Matte
Tuning the polarity of charge carriers using electron deficient thiophenes
Thiophene-1,1-dioxide (TDO) oligomers have fascinating electronic properties. We previously used thermopower measurements to show that a change in charge carrier from hole to electron occurs with increasing length of TDO oligomers when single-molecule junctions are formed between gold electrodes. In this article, we show for the first time that the dominant conducting orbitals for thiophene/ TDO oligomers of fixed length can be tuned by altering the strength of the electron acceptors incorporated into the backbone. We use the scanning tunneling microscope break-junction (STM-BJ) technique and apply a recently developed method to determine the dominant transport channel in single-molecule junctions formed with these systems. Through these measurements, we find that increasing the electron affinity of thiophene derivatives, within a family of pentamers, changes the polarity of the charge carriers systematically from holes to electrons, with some systems even showing mid-gap transport characteristics
ultrafast electron injection into photo excited organic molecules
State-of-the-art X-ray spectroscopy allows femtosecond gating of energy levels of photo-excited molecules on a metal substrate enabling ultrafast and bi-directional charge transfer across the interface with controllable dependence on the molecular adsorption geometry
Solitonics with Polyacetylenes
Polyacetylene molecular wires have attracted a long-standing interest for the past 40 years. From a fundamental perspective, there are two main reasons for the interest. First, polyacetylenes are a prime realization of a one-dimensional topological insulator. Second, long molecules support freely propagating topological domain-wall states, so-called "solitons," which provide an early paradigm for spin-charge separation. Because of recent experimental developments, individual poly- acetylene chains can now be synthesized on substrates. Motivated by this breakthrough, we here propose a novel way for chemically supported soliton design in these systems. We demonstrate how to control the soliton position and how to read it out via external means. Also, we show how extra soliton-antisoliton pairs arise when applying a moderate static electric field. We thus make a step toward functionality of electronic devices based on soliton manipulation, that is, "solitonics"
Single-Molecule Circuits with Well-Defined Molecular Conductance
We measure the conductance of amine-terminated molecules by breaking Au point
contacts in a molecular solution at room temperature. We find that the
variability of the observed conductance for the diamine molecule-Au junctions
is much less than the variability for diisonitrile and dithiol-Au junctions.
This narrow distribution enables unambiguous conductance measurements of single
molecules. For an alkane diamine series with 2-8 carbon atoms in the
hydrocarbon chain, our results show a systematic trend in the conductance from
which we extract a tunneling decay constant of 0.91 +/- 0.03 per methylene
group. We hypothesize that the diamine link binds preferentially to
undercoordinated Au atoms in the junction. This is supported by density
functional theory-based calculations that show the amine binding to a gold
adatom with sufficient angular flexibility for easy junction formation but
well-defined electronic coupling of the N lone pair to the Au. Therefore, the
amine linkage leads to well-defined conductance measurements of a single
molecule junction in a statistical study
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