Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Long-range electron tunnelling in oligo-porphyr...
View graph of relations

Long-range electron tunnelling in oligo-porphyrin molecular wires

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
Close
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>08/2011
<mark>Journal</mark>Nature Nanotechnology
Issue number8
Volume6
Number of pages7
Pages (from-to)517-523
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Short chains of porphyrin molecules can mediate electron transport over distances as long as 5-10 nm with low attenuation. This means that porphyrin-based molecular wires could be useful in nanoelectronic and photovoltaic devices, but the mechanisms responsible for charge transport in single oligo-porphyrin wires have not yet been established. Here, based on electrical measurements of single-molecule junctions, we show that the conductance of the oligo-porphyrin wires has a strong dependence on temperature, and a weak dependence on the length of the wire. Although it is widely accepted that such behaviour is a signature of a thermally assisted incoherent ( hopping) mechanism, density functional theory calculations and an accompanying analytical model strongly suggest that the observed temperature and length dependence is consistent with phase-coherent tunnelling through the whole molecular junction.