Low Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule Junctions
Abstract One key issue for the development of molecular electronic devices is to understand the electron transport of single-molecule junctions. In this work, we explore the electron transport of iodine-terminated alkane single molecular junctions using the scanning tunneling microscope-based break...
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doaj-a07759d12ac14938b33a21c05d6a34922020-11-25T01:18:37ZengSpringerOpenNanoscale Research Letters1931-75731556-276X2018-04-011311610.1186/s11671-018-2528-zLow Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule JunctionsLin-Lu Peng0Bing Huang1Qi Zou2Ze-Wen Hong3Ju-Fang Zheng4Yong Shao5Zhen-Jiang Niu6Xiao-Shun Zhou7Hu-Jun Xie8Wenbo Chen9Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal UniversityKey Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal UniversityShanghai Key Laboratory of Materials Protection and Advanced Materials in Electric Power, Shanghai University of Electric PowerKey Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal UniversityKey Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal UniversityKey Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal UniversityKey Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal UniversityKey Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal UniversityDepartment of Applied Chemistry, Zhejiang Gongshang UniversityShanghai Key Laboratory of Materials Protection and Advanced Materials in Electric Power, Shanghai University of Electric PowerAbstract One key issue for the development of molecular electronic devices is to understand the electron transport of single-molecule junctions. In this work, we explore the electron transport of iodine-terminated alkane single molecular junctions using the scanning tunneling microscope-based break junction approach. The result shows that the conductance decreases exponentially with the increase of molecular length with a decay constant β N = 0.5 per –CH2 (or 4 nm−1). Importantly, the tunneling decay of those molecular junctions is much lower than that of alkane molecules with thiol, amine, and carboxylic acid as the anchoring groups and even comparable to that of the conjugated oligophenyl molecules. The low tunneling decay is attributed to the small barrier height between iodine-terminated alkane molecule and Au, which is well supported by DFT calculations. The work suggests that the tunneling decay can be effectively tuned by the anchoring group, which may guide the manufacturing of molecular wires.http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s11671-018-2528-zElectron transportBarrier heightSingle molecular junctionIodineAlkyl-based molecules |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Lin-Lu Peng Bing Huang Qi Zou Ze-Wen Hong Ju-Fang Zheng Yong Shao Zhen-Jiang Niu Xiao-Shun Zhou Hu-Jun Xie Wenbo Chen |
spellingShingle |
Lin-Lu Peng Bing Huang Qi Zou Ze-Wen Hong Ju-Fang Zheng Yong Shao Zhen-Jiang Niu Xiao-Shun Zhou Hu-Jun Xie Wenbo Chen Low Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule Junctions Nanoscale Research Letters Electron transport Barrier height Single molecular junction Iodine Alkyl-based molecules |
author_facet |
Lin-Lu Peng Bing Huang Qi Zou Ze-Wen Hong Ju-Fang Zheng Yong Shao Zhen-Jiang Niu Xiao-Shun Zhou Hu-Jun Xie Wenbo Chen |
author_sort |
Lin-Lu Peng |
title |
Low Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule Junctions |
title_short |
Low Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule Junctions |
title_full |
Low Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule Junctions |
title_fullStr |
Low Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule Junctions |
title_full_unstemmed |
Low Tunneling Decay of Iodine-Terminated Alkane Single-Molecule Junctions |
title_sort |
low tunneling decay of iodine-terminated alkane single-molecule junctions |
publisher |
SpringerOpen |
series |
Nanoscale Research Letters |
issn |
1931-7573 1556-276X |
publishDate |
2018-04-01 |
description |
Abstract One key issue for the development of molecular electronic devices is to understand the electron transport of single-molecule junctions. In this work, we explore the electron transport of iodine-terminated alkane single molecular junctions using the scanning tunneling microscope-based break junction approach. The result shows that the conductance decreases exponentially with the increase of molecular length with a decay constant β N = 0.5 per –CH2 (or 4 nm−1). Importantly, the tunneling decay of those molecular junctions is much lower than that of alkane molecules with thiol, amine, and carboxylic acid as the anchoring groups and even comparable to that of the conjugated oligophenyl molecules. The low tunneling decay is attributed to the small barrier height between iodine-terminated alkane molecule and Au, which is well supported by DFT calculations. The work suggests that the tunneling decay can be effectively tuned by the anchoring group, which may guide the manufacturing of molecular wires. |
topic |
Electron transport Barrier height Single molecular junction Iodine Alkyl-based molecules |
url |
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s11671-018-2528-z |
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