Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - A detailed experimental and theoretical study into the properties of C60 dumbbell junctions
AU - Gillemot, Katalin
AU - Evangeli, Charalambos
AU - Leary, Edmund
AU - La Rosa, Andrea
AU - Gonzalez, M. Teresa
AU - Filippone, Salvatore
AU - Grace, Iain
AU - Rubio-Bollinger, Gabino
AU - Ferrer, Jamie
AU - Martin, Nazario
AU - Lambert, Colin
AU - Agrait, Nicolas
PY - 2013/11/25
Y1 - 2013/11/25
N2 - A combined experimental and theoretical investigation is carried out into the electrical transport across a fullerene dumbbell one-molecule junction. The newly designed molecule comprises two C60s connected to a fluorene backbone via cyclopropyl groups. It is wired between gold electrodes under ambient conditions by pressing the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) onto one of the C60 groups. The STM allows us to identify a single molecule before the junction is formed through imaging, which means unambiguously that only one molecule is wired. Once lifted, the same molecule could be wired many times as it was strongly fixed to the tip, and a high conductance state close to 10−2 G0 is found. The results also suggest that the relative conductance fluctuations are low as a result of the low mobility of the molecule. Theoretical analysis indicates that the molecule is connected directly to one electrode through the central fluorene, and that to bind it to the gold fully it has to be pushed through a layer of adsorbates naturally present in the experiment.
AB - A combined experimental and theoretical investigation is carried out into the electrical transport across a fullerene dumbbell one-molecule junction. The newly designed molecule comprises two C60s connected to a fluorene backbone via cyclopropyl groups. It is wired between gold electrodes under ambient conditions by pressing the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) onto one of the C60 groups. The STM allows us to identify a single molecule before the junction is formed through imaging, which means unambiguously that only one molecule is wired. Once lifted, the same molecule could be wired many times as it was strongly fixed to the tip, and a high conductance state close to 10−2 G0 is found. The results also suggest that the relative conductance fluctuations are low as a result of the low mobility of the molecule. Theoretical analysis indicates that the molecule is connected directly to one electrode through the central fluorene, and that to bind it to the gold fully it has to be pushed through a layer of adsorbates naturally present in the experiment.
KW - SINGLE-MOLECULE JUNCTION
KW - ELECTRON-TRANSPORT
KW - ANCHORING GROUPS
KW - THIN-LAYERS
KW - CONDUCTANCE
KW - WATER
KW - SPECTROSCOPY
KW - INTERFACE
KW - MODES
KW - WIRES
U2 - 10.1002/smll.201300310
DO - 10.1002/smll.201300310
M3 - Journal article
VL - 9
SP - 3812
EP - 3822
JO - Small
JF - Small
SN - 1613-6810
IS - 22
ER -