Measuring Relative Barrier Heights in Molecular Electronic Junctions with Transition Voltage Spectroscopy
- 23 April 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in ACS Nano
- Vol. 2 (5), 827-832
- https://doi.org/10.1021/nn700424u
Abstract
Though molecular devices exhibiting potentially useful electrical behavior have been demonstrated, a deep understanding of the factors that influence charge transport in molecular electronic junctions has yet to be fully realized. Recent work has shown that a mechanistic transition occurs from direct tunneling to field emission in molecular electronic devices. The magnitude of the voltage required to enact this transition is molecule-specific, and thus measurement of the transition voltage constitutes a form of spectroscopy. Here we determine that the transition voltage for a series of alkanethiol molecules is invariant with molecular length, while the transition voltage of a conjugated molecule depends directly on the manner in which the conjugation pathway has been extended. Finally, by examining the transition voltage as a function of contact metal, we show that this technique can be used to determine the dominant charge carrier for a given molecular junction.This publication has 41 references indexed in Scilit:
- Structural Contributions to Charge Transport across Ni-Octanedithiol Multilayer JunctionsNano Letters, 2006
- Reversible and Controllable Switching of a Single‐Molecule JunctionSmall, 2006
- Transition from Direct Tunneling to Field Emission in Metal-Molecule-Metal JunctionsPhysical Review Letters, 2006
- Delocalized electron resonance at the alkanethiolate self-assembled monolayer∕Au(111) interfaceThe Journal of Chemical Physics, 2006
- Molecularly inherent voltage-controlled conductance switchingNature Materials, 2005
- Comparison of Electronic Transport Measurements on Organic MoleculesAdvanced Materials, 2003
- Single-electron transistor of a single organic molecule with access to several redox statesNature, 2003
- Coulomb blockade and the Kondo effect in single-atom transistorsNature, 2002
- Conductance Switching in Single Molecules Through Conformational ChangesScience, 2001
- Molecular random access memory cellApplied Physics Letters, 2001