Molecular attachment to a microscope tip: inelastic tunneling, Kondo screening, and thermopower

• Rouzhaji Tuerhong,
• Mauro Boero and
• Jean-Pierre Bucher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1243–1250, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.124

• thermopower measured across the single-molecule junction. Keywords: inelastic electron tunneling; molecular quantum dot; Kondo physics; single molecule; thermopower; tunnel junction; Introduction Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has the capability to detect the electron transport through a molecule not

Electronic conduction during the formation stages of a single-molecule junction

• Atindra Nath Pal,
• Tal Klein,
• Ayelet Vilan and
• Oren Tal

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1471–1477, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.138

• configurations before the realization of a single-molecule bridge based on vanadocene molecules and silver electrodes. With the aid of conductance measurements, inelastic electron spectroscopy and shot noise analysis, we identify the formation of a single-molecule junction in parallel to a single-atom junction

• scenarios in which a single-molecule junction is formed. Future control over such processes may pave the way for directed formation of preferred junction structures. Keywords: break junction; electron–vibration interactions; electronic transport; inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy; molecular

• form two electrode apexes. In some cases, a molecule is trapped between the electrodes, forming a single-molecule junction (Figure 1b). For more than two decades, the electronic transport properties of single-molecule junctions based on organic or organometallic molecules were explored in numerous of

Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy of difurylethene-based photochromic single-molecule junctions

• Youngsang Kim,
• Safa G. Bahoosh,
• Dmytro Sysoiev,
• Thomas Huhn,
• Fabian Pauly and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2606–2614, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.261

• trapped between the separated electrodes showing molecular conductance plateaus. The plateau with the lowest conductance indicates a single-molecule junction, before also the metal–molecule–metal contact breaks, as indicated by a sudden drop of the conductance to below 10−8 G0. This breaking process is

• traces shown in Figure 1c it becomes clear that multiple steps occur within the individual opening processes. These multiple steps might originate from multi-molecule contacts as well as from a single-molecule junction that adopts different configurations upon stretching. We assume that the most

• consistently assign the peak with the lowest conductance as originating from the single-molecule junction. However, the fact that several peaks are observed may also indicate that single-molecule junctions with different conductance values, depending on the geometry, exist. Subsequently, we measured IET

Role of solvents in the electronic transport properties of single-molecule junctions

• Katharina Luka-Guth,
• Sebastian Hambsch,
• Andreas Bloch,
• Philipp Ehrenreich,
• Bernd Michael Briechle,
• Filip Kilibarda,
• Torsten Sendler,
• Dmytro Sysoiev,
• Thomas Huhn,
• Artur Erbe and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1055–1067, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.99

• these parameters are determined by microscopic properties of the junctions, i.e., by the atomic configurations. Discussion As mentioned above, we consider a solvent as “suitable”, if its transport properties in MCBJ geometry cannot be mistaken for a single-molecule junction formed by a “functional

Rigid multipodal platforms for metal surfaces

• Michal Valášek,
• Marcin Lindner and
• Marcel Mayor

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 374–405, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.34

• recently [38]. Aso and co-workers also recently designed and synthesized the [4-(4-pyridyl)phenyl]methyl tripodal platforms 33 and 34 (Figure 13) to realize robust single-molecule junction with a gold electrode and to achieve effective hybridization of the pyridine π orbitals with the gold electrode [35

Probing the local environment of a single OPE3 molecule using inelastic tunneling electron spectroscopy

• Riccardo Frisenda,
• Mickael L. Perrin and
• Herre S. J. van der Zant

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2477–2484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.257

• investigate the IETS signal of an oligo(phenylene ethynylene)dithiol molecule (OPE3) single-molecule junction at liquid helium temperature (4.2 K). Exploiting the high stability of the mechanically controlled break junction technique in cryogenic vacuum, we investigate the evolution of the junction in time

• previously, different IETS spectra were recorded due to switches between different configurations, while the electrode separation was being kept constant. In the following, we investigate the influence of the displacement on the IETS spectra on a different single-molecule junction (junction 2). We started

• electrode separation was increased by 6 pm. The top panel of Figure 4a shows the conductance breaking trace extracted from a linear fit of the IVs at low bias. The plateau in conductance indicates the formation of the single-molecule junction. Continuous regions are observed and separated by steps, which

Electrical properties and mechanical stability of anchoring groups for single-molecule electronics

• Riccardo Frisenda,
• Simge Tarkuç,
• Elena Galán,
• Mickael L. Perrin,
• Rienk Eelkema,
• Ferdinand C. Grozema and
• Herre S. J. van der Zant

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1558–1567, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.159

• conductance, and traces where no molecule was trapped between the electrode, showing an exponential decay of the conductance. The molecular junctions show up as broad, flat high-count regions that extend for around 1 nm; these indicate the most probable value for the single-molecule junction conductance. From

The role of surface corrugation and tip oscillation in single-molecule manipulation with a non-contact atomic force microscope

• Christian Wagner,
• Norman Fournier,
• F. Stefan Tautz and
• Ruslan Temirov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 202–209, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.22

• effects into account (cf. text). The inset in the upper right corner clarifies the schematics of the single-molecule junction used in the extended simulation model. (b) Correction term Δcorr calculated as the difference between the two curves from panel (a). The red curve was obtained from the analytic

Transmission eigenvalue distributions in highly conductive molecular junctions

• Justin P. Bergfield,
• Joshua D. Barr and
• Charles A. Stafford

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 40–51, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.5

• ; multichannel; quantum transport; single-molecule junction; transmission eigenchannels; Introduction The number of transmission channels for a single-atom contact between two metallic electrodes is simply given by the chemical valence of the atom [1]. Recently, it was argued [2] that the number of dominant

• transmission channels in a single-molecule junction (SMJ) is determined by the degeneracy of the molecular orbital [3] closest to the metal Fermi level. In this article, we focus on ensembles of highly conductive Pt–benzene–Pt junctions [4] in which the lead and molecule are in direct contact. Going beyond the

When “small” terms matter: Coupled interference features in the transport properties of cross-conjugated molecules

• Gemma C. Solomon,
• Justin P. Bergfield,
• Charles A. Stafford and
• Mark A. Ratner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 862–871, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.95

• gDFTB and many-body calculations, we find that the order of the interference feature in acyclic systems can be strongly dependent upon through-space terms and electron correlations. Methods Transport in a single-molecule junction is often described by using Green’s function approaches, where the elastic

Effect of the environment on the electrical conductance of the single benzene-1,4-diamine molecule junction

• Shigeto Nakashima,
• Yuuta Takahashi and
• Manabu Kiguchi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 755–759, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.83

• coverage of the BDA molecule at metal electrodes and atomic and molecular motion of the single-molecule junction. Keywords: benzene-1,4-diamine; electric conductance; single-molecule junction; solvent; Introduction The electron transport properties through a single molecule bridging metal electrodes

• (single-molecule junction) have attracted much attention toward the realization of molecular scale electronics [1][2]. Electrical conductance of the single-molecule junction was investigated by means of mechanically controllable break junction (MCBJ), scanning tunneling microscope (STM), and other

• techniques. In the simple tunneling model, the transmission (T(E)) of the single-molecule junction can be represented by where t, ρ, Crk and εk are the hopping integral between the metal and molecular orbitals (MO), the local density of states (LDOS) of the metals at the Fermi level (EF), the kth MO

Charge transport in a zinc–porphyrin single-molecule junction

• Mickael L. Perrin,
• Christian A. Martin,
• Ferry Prins,
• Ahson J. Shaikh,
• Rienk Eelkema,
• Jan H. van Esch,
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek,
• Herre S. J. van der Zant and
• Diana Dulić

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 714–719, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.77

• allows us to characterize the transport in a molecular junction in detail. This complex molecule can form different junction configurations, having an observable effect on the trace histograms and the current–voltage (I(V)) measurements. Both methods show that multiple, stable single-molecule junction

• molecular junction. Both methods show that multiple stable single-molecule junction configurations can be obtained by stretching or fusing the junction. In addition we demonstrate that different ZnTPPdT–Pyr junction configurations can lead to different spectroscopic features for similar low-bias conductance

An MCBJ case study: The influence of π-conjugation on the single-molecule conductance at a solid/liquid interface

• Wenjing Hong,
• Hennie Valkenier,
• Gábor Mészáros,
• David Zsolt Manrique,
• Artem Mishchenko,
• Alexander Putz,
• Pavel Moreno García,
• Colin J. Lambert,
• Jan C. Hummelen and
• Thomas Wandlowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 699–713, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.76

• , which indicates the formation of a single-molecule junction between the two electrodes. The current noise is attributed to the thermal vibration of the molecular junction at room temperature. The conductance traces exhibit an abrupt decrease upon breaking of the molecular junction until the noise level

• conductance histograms. The graph in Figure 5E shows a well-resolved maximum located at 10−4.5 G0, despite the limited number of data points (ca. 200 from three traces). This value represents the most probable conductance of a gold|AC|gold single-molecule junction, and is in perfect agreement with the result

• large-area molecular junctions, is not directly accessible, thus preventing the downscaling to an “effective” single-molecule-junction response. Conclusion We described in this paper the construction of a mechanically controlled break-junction setup (MCBJ) equipped with a highly sensitive log I–V