Highly Efficient Long-Range Electron Transport in a Viologen-Based Molecular Junction

Thin layers of viologen-based oligomers with thicknesses between 3 and 14 nm were deposited on gold electrodes by electrochemical reduction of a diazonium salt, and then a Ti/Au top contact was applied to complete a solid-state molecular junction (MJ). MJs show symmetric J–V curves and highly effici...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Chemical Society 2018-08, Vol.140 (32), p.10131-10134
Main Authors: Nguyen, Quyen Van, Martin, Pascal, Frath, Denis, Della Rocca, Maria Luisa, Lafolet, Frederic, Bellinck, Sebastien, Lafarge, Philippe, Lacroix, Jean-Christophe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical Physics
Chemical Sciences
Physics
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Summary:Thin layers of viologen-based oligomers with thicknesses between 3 and 14 nm were deposited on gold electrodes by electrochemical reduction of a diazonium salt, and then a Ti/Au top contact was applied to complete a solid-state molecular junction (MJ). MJs show symmetric J–V curves and highly efficient long-range transport, with an attenuation factor as small as 0.25 nm–1. This is attributed both to the fact that the viologen LUMO energy lies between the energies of the Fermi levels of the two contacts and to strong electronic coupling between molecules and contacts. As a consequence, resonant tunneling is likely to be the dominant transport mechanism within these MJs, but the temperature dependence of the transport properties suggests that activated redox hopping plays a role at high temperature.
ISSN:0002-7863
1520-5126
DOI:10.1021/jacs.8b05589