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

• , Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, D-01328 Dresden, Germany Chemistry Department, University of Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany 10.3762/bjnano.7.99 Abstract We report on an experimental study of the charge transport through tunnel gaps formed by adjustable gold electrodes immersed into different

• exposed to the solvent may also be considered. While the lifetime aspect is shortly addressed in our work, a comprehensive study of all these aspects is beyond the scope of this article. Conclusion We have investigated charge transport through tunnel contacts formed by the mechanically controllable break

Reorientation of single-wall carbon nanotubes in negative anisotropy liquid crystals by an electric field

• Amanda García-García,
• Ricardo Vergaz,
• José F. Algorri,
• Gianluigi Zito,
• Teresa Cacace,
• Antigone Marino,
• José M. Otón and
• Morten A. Geday

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 825–833, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.74

• conductivity, where the charge transport is favored along the longitudinal axis [2]. Liquid crystals (LCs) are self-organized anisotropic fluids, well-known for their use in flat panel mobile, PC, and TV displays. Besides consumer electronic products, LCs are employed in many photonic devices such as spatial

• longitudinal axis parallel to the electrodes) to perpendicular (i.e., the longitudinal axis is perpendicular to the electrodes) may be detected as a LC−SWCNT cell conductivity increase. This is attributed to the favored charge transport between the electrodes through the SWCNT longitudinal axis. The SWCNTs may

Assembling semiconducting molecules by covalent attachment to a lamellar crystalline polymer substrate

• Rainhard Machatschek,
• Patrick Ortmann,
• Renate Reiter,
• Stefan Mecking and
• Günter Reiter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 784–798, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.70

• crystallization or dewetting may lead to films with a complex morphology that differs substantially from the homogeneous, closed and largely defect-free film, which is required for good charge transport. One has to take into account that differences in device morphology directly translate into differences in

• assembled at the crystal surface, probably exhibited a strong overlap of their π-orbitals, which is one of the main prerequisites for efficient charge transport [20]. Finally, we want to emphasize that the perylene derivative 1 used in this study can be replaced by many other semiconducting molecules, which

Thermo-voltage measurements of atomic contacts at low temperature

• Ayelet Ofarim,
• Bastian Kopp,
• Thomas Möller,
• León Martin,
• Johannes Boneberg,
• Paul Leiderer and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 767–775, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.68

• temperature gradients into electrical energy and for the local energy dissipation. More fundamentally, the study of thermoelectric effects in atomic-scale nanostructures and in molecular junctions gives important additional information of charge transport [2][3][4]. The thermopower is quantified by the

• from the behavior of bulk metals were found. The bulk values were retrieved for contacts larger than 10000 atoms in cross section only. Dell et al. [11] studied the charge transport characteristics of a series of organic molecules. Through thermo-voltage measurements, they showed that the transport

• combination allows the determination of the Seebeck coefficient of atomic-scale devices, which will lead to a better understanding of charge transport in these systems. The set-up is also suitable for measuring the thermopower of single-molecule contacts as well as to be operated at variable base temperature

Bacteriorhodopsin–ZnO hybrid as a potential sensing element for low-temperature detection of ethanol vapour

• Saurav Kumar,
• Sudeshna Bagchi,
• Senthil Prasad,
• Anupma Sharma,
• Ritesh Kumar,
• Rishemjit Kaur,
• Jagvir Singh and
• Amol P. Bhondekar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 501–510, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.44

• . The morphological and spectroscopic analysis of the hybrid structures confirmed the ZnO thin film/nanorod growth and functional properties of bR. The photoactivity results of the bR protein further corroborated the sustainability of its charge transport property and biological activity. When exposed

• biological activity after immobilization on solid supports and exhibits charge transport in thin films [8][14][15]. These properties have attracted researchers for the development of novel bio-hybrid devices [5][7][16][17][18][19]. Hybrids of bR protein with various metal/metal oxides (e.g., Au, Ag, TiO2

Charge and heat transport in soft nanosystems in the presence of time-dependent perturbations

• Alberto Nocera,
• Carmine Antonio Perroni,
• Vincenzo Marigliano Ramaglia and
• Vittorio Cataudella

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 439–464, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.39

• authors in other contexts [70], is based on the time-scale separation between the slow dot vibrational degrees of freedom and the fast electronic time scales involved in the thermal or charge transport. In [68][71][72], the case of a single vibrational mode within the Anderson–Holstein model has been

Invariance of molecular charge transport upon changes of extended molecule size and several related issues

• Ioan Bâldea

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 418–431, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.37

• .7.37 Abstract As a sanity test for the theoretical method employed, studies on (steady-state) charge transport through molecular devices usually confine themselves to check whether the method in question satisfies the charge conservation. Another important test of the theory’s correctness is to check

• spurious structures in nonlinear ranges of current–voltage curves. Keywords: extended Hückel method; Landauer formalism; molecular electronics; negative differential resistance; wide- and flat-band approximation; Introduction Even restricted to the steady-state regime, studying charge transport through

• particularly true in (chemisorption) cases where the anchoring groups form covalent bonds to the electrodes. Within current approaches to molecular charge transport, mostly based on nonequilibrium Keldysh Green’s functions (NEGF) combined with density functional theory (DFT), the molecular device is

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

• significantly affect the charge transport properties of the molecular junctions [55]. Nevertheless, these anchoring groups have been explored most frequently when attached to core structures that are not highly conjugated and exhibit poor conductivity (e.g., saturated alkanes) [26][30][56]. In contrast, highly

• . While organic π-conjugated systems are capable of more efficient charge transport along the molecular backbone due to the electron delocalization. This fundamental phenomenon is induced by the difference in the energy gap between the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and highest occupied

• molecular order in monolayers on gold surfaces, the increasing length of rod-like oligothiophene moieties standing upwards on the surface as well as the higher number of hexyl side chains along the structure. Consequently these features were identified as unfavorable factors for charge transport through the

Case studies on the formation of chalcogenide self-assembled monolayers on surfaces and dissociative processes

• Yongfeng Tong,
• Tingming Jiang,
• Azzedine Bendounan,
• Makri Nimbegondi Kotresh Harish,
• Angelo Giglia,
• Stefan Kubsky,
• Fausto Sirotti,
• Luca Pasquali,
• Srinivasan Sampath and
• Vladimir A. Esaulov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 263–277, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.24

• chalcogenophenes, the carbon–chalcogen atom-bond breaking can lead to opening of the ring and adsorption of an alkene chalcogenide. Such a disruption of the π-electron system affects charge transport along the chains. Awareness about these effects is of importance from the point of view of molecular electronics

• particular the characteristics of charge transport through such a sulfidic interface layer would be strongly affected. In the context of the use of nanoparticles in various applications [49][50][51][52] such as in catalysis, sensing or hydrogen storage, capping the nanoparticles using thiols leads to

• of aromaticity and planarity can thus occur and this interrupts the π-electron system and impairs charge transport along the chains. There are indications of the appearance of atomic S on the surface [60][61][63], i.e., complete desulfurization for these thiophenes. Finally, experiments show that the

Synthesis and applications of carbon nanomaterials for energy generation and storage

• Marco Notarianni,
• Jinzhang Liu,
• Kristy Vernon and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 149–196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.17

Charge injection and transport properties of an organic light-emitting diode

• Peter Juhasz,
• Juraj Nevrela,
• Michal Micjan,
• Miroslav Novota,
• Jan Uhrik,
• Lubica Stuchlikova,
• Jan Jakabovic,
• Ladislav Harmatha and
• Martin Weis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 47–52, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.5

• improvement. In details, the organic–organic and metal–organic interfaces determine injection properties, whereas the conductivities of organic layers limit the charge transport properties. Charge transport in organic semiconductors has been widely studied by electrical characterization techniques such as

• correlation between obtained results of different characterization techniques is reliable only for the same device. This study demonstrates charge transport properties in OLED devices formed by indium tin oxide (ITO)/N,N'-di-1-naphthyl-N,N'-diphenyl-1,1'-biphenyl-4,4'-diamine (α-NPD)/Alq3/Al system. The

• . Note that the significant rise of the current in certain voltage region only is usually assigned to the trap-filled-limit (TFL) voltage. In other words, the charge transport properties of organic films are changed due to filling of all localized states and charge carriers are no more influenced by the

Effects of electronic coupling and electrostatic potential on charge transport in carbon-based molecular electronic junctions

• Richard L. McCreery

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 32–46, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.4

• ; Introduction The field of Molecular Electronics investigates the behavior of molecules as elements in electronic circuits, with the intent of exploiting variations of molecular structure to realize unusual electronic functions [1][2][3][4]. Charge transport through single molecules and through ensembles of

• of molecules oriented between two conductors, with charge transport through the molecular layer. The vast majority of existing junction structures are based on metal/molecule bonding such as the Au/thiol self-assembled monolayers [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], Langmuir–Blodgett films on metals

• charge transport through the junction. Consider first the G9–AB–G9 model of Figure 1, in which the distance between the nearest carbon atoms in the two G9 rings in the optimized structure is 1.21 nm. Table 3 lists the H, H−1, and H−2 orbital energies and t values for the indicated pairs of orbitals. With

Chemiresistive/SERS dual sensor based on densely packed gold nanoparticles

• Sanda Boca,
• Cosmin Leordean,
• Simion Astilean and
• Cosmin Farcau

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2498–2503, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.259

• considering that charge transport through the NP assembly occurs mainly by electron tunneling. The tunneling resistance depends exponentially on the interparticle distance l (surface to surface): RT ≈ eβl, where β is a tunneling decay constant that describes the tunneling of electrons along the organic

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

• fluctuations caused by different molecular configurations. Our findings provide a way to gain additional information regarding the molecule–electrode interaction, in particular, the interesting interplay between molecular conformation, vibrations and charge transport. (a) Schematic of the inelastic electron

• tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) in a single-molecule junction. Charge transport happens through the tail of the Lorentzian broadened occupied molecular level depicted. The wiggly red line represents a molecular vibration excited after an inelastic scattering event (shown also in the right panel). (b) IETS

High electronic couplings of single mesitylene molecular junctions

• Yuki Komoto,
• Shintaro Fujii,
• Tomoaki Nishino and
• Manabu Kiguchi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2431–2437, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.251

• electrode perpendicular to the charge transport direction and (ii) mesitylene has tilted from the perpendicular orientation. Keywords: break junction; charge transport; mesitylene; single molecular junction; scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM); Introduction Along with increasing interests in molecular

• electronics on the single molecular scale [1], much efforts have been devoted to understand charge transport in a single molecular junction, in which a single molecule is wired to two metal electrodes. In recent years single molecular junctions with electronic functionalities such as diodes [2][3][4][5][6][7

• at least 10 times larger than di-substituted benzene such as BDT [38] and 1,4-benzenediamine (BDA) [16]. The mesitylene molecule can bind to metal electrodes with its molecular plane perpendicular to the direction of charge transport [20]. Here, we investigate the possible origin of the high

Simulation of thermal stress and buckling instability in Si/Ge and Ge/Si core/shell nanowires

• Suvankar Das,
• Amitava Moitra,
• Mishreyee Bhattacharya and
• Amlan Dutta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1970–1977, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.201

• years, a drastic rise in the research activities on semiconductor core/shell nanowires (CSNWs) made of silicon and germanium has occurred. Such studies are often motivated by the excellent charge transport properties of the materials [1][2][3][4], for which they are now seen as prospective candidates

Large-voltage behavior of charge transport characteristics in nanosystems with weak electron–vibration coupling

• Tomáš Novotný and
• Wolfgang Belzig

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1853–1859, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.188

• analytically the Full Counting Statistics of the charge transport through a nanosystem consisting of a few electronic levels weakly coupled to a discrete vibrational mode. In the limit of large transport voltage bias the cumulant generating function can be evaluated explicitly based solely on the intuitive

Surface engineering of nanoporous substrate for solid oxide fuel cells with atomic layer-deposited electrolyte

• Sanghoon Ji,
• Waqas Hassan Tanveer,
• Wonjong Yu,
• Sungmin Kang,
• Gu Young Cho,
• Sung Han Kim,
• Jihwan An and
• Suk Won Cha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1805–1810, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.184

• (DC) bias voltages (OCV and 0.1 V with respect to the cathode) for the Cell-B were overlapped to differentiate the ohmic resistance (resulting from charge transport inside electrolyte) from the activation resistance (resulting from reaction kinetics at electrode–electrolyte interface), as shown in the

Conductance through single biphenyl molecules: symmetric and asymmetric coupling to electrodes

• Karthiga Kanthasamy and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1690–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.171

• , diodes and logic switches [1]. Two decades after the proposal from Aviram and Ratner describing the molecular junction as p-n diodes [2] the experimental research in the field of molecular electronics [3] emerged. Even today, our understanding of the fundamental properties and charge transport mechanism

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

• electronic coupling between the molecule and the metal electrode are essential to characterize charge transport in single-molecule junctions and to create new fundamental devices such as molecular motors or molecular machines [26][27]. Several previous studies have shown that stable and reproducible single

Current–voltage characteristics of manganite–titanite perovskite junctions

• Benedikt Ifland,
• Patrick Peretzki,
• Birte Kressdorf,
• Philipp Saring,
• Andreas Kelling,
• Michael Seibt and
• Christian Jooss

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1467–1484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.152

• . Modeling diffusion length determination by EBIC The charge carrier diffusion length, L, is an important parameter to determine the recombination-limited charge transport processes in electronic devices [50]. It is connected to the charge carrier lifetime, τ, and mobility, μ, by the Einstein relation: While

Enhanced fullerene–Au(111) coupling in (2√3 × 2√3)R30° superstructures with intermolecular interactions

• Michael Paßens,
• Rainer Waser and
• Silvia Karthäuser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1421–1431, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.147

• groups to bind functional molecules to electrodes and thus, to construct electronic circuits. In this case, charge transport takes place through the fullerenes and crucially depends on the electrode coupling of C60 [5][6][7]. Therefore, it is essential to understand in detail the interactions at the C60

Electron and heat transport in porphyrin-based single-molecule transistors with electro-burnt graphene electrodes

• Hatef Sadeghi,
• Sara Sangtarash and
• Colin J. Lambert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1413–1420, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.146

• charge transport by means of an effective tight binding model. Finally, we investigate the thermoelectric properties of the device. Results and Discussion Figure 1 shows the molecular structure of the porphyrin-based single-molecule transistor (SET), which consists of two electro-burnt graphene

Nano-contact microscopy of supracrystals

• Adam Sweetman,
• Nicolas Goubet,
• Ioannis Lekkas,
• Marie Paule Pileni and
• Philip Moriarty

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1229–1236, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.126

• depends both on the effective dimensionality and the amount of topological/charge disorder in the system. The distribution of nanocrystal connectivity due to this disorder plays an essential role in determining the topological “landscape” for charge transport, which can be affected at the nanoscopic

Electrical characterization of single molecule and Langmuir–Blodgett monomolecular films of a pyridine-terminated oligo(phenylene-ethynylene) derivative

• Henrry M. Osorio,
• Santiago Martín,
• María Carmen López,
• Santiago Marqués-González,
• Simon J. Higgins,
• Richard J. Nichols,
• Paul J. Low and
• Pilar Cea

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1145–1157, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.116

• efficient pyridyl–Au contacts. Previous contributions in the field have shown that the charge transport in molecular wires incorporating electron-withdrawing pyridyl-type anchoring groups is preferentially controlled by the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO). That is, the pyridyl group decreases the

• molecular environment is different in both cases. Whilst the molecules are closely packed within the LB film, no nearest molecules exist for the single molecule studies. A widely applied tunneling model for non-resonant tunneling charge transport was developed by Simmons [109]. In this model, the current I

• gold substrates were studied using STM. The shape of the I–V curves and good fit with the Simmons model indicate that charge transport across of the metal–monolayer–metal junctions follows a nonresonant tunneling mechanism. Importantly, the conductance value in LB films (5.17 × 10−5 G0) is similar to