Light-triggered self-construction of supramolecular organic nanowires as metallic interconnects

• Published in: Nature chemistry 2012-04, Vol.4 (6), p.485-490
• Main Authors: Faramarzi, Vina, Niess, Frédéric, Moulin, Emilie, Maaloum, Mounir, Dayen, Jean-François, Beaufrand, Jean-Baptiste, Zanettini, Silvia, Doudin, Bernard, Giuseppone, Nicolas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/638/298/917; 639/638/541/966; 639/925/357/1016; Analytical Chemistry; Biochemistry; Chemical Sciences; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Chemistry/Food Science; Conduction; Conductivity; Electric fields; Electricity; Electrodes; Electronics; Inorganic Chemistry; Light; Material chemistry; Metals; Metals - chemistry; Microscopy, Atomic Force; Nanotechnology; Nanowires; Organic chemicals; Organic Chemistry; Physical Chemistry; Polymers; Polymers - chemistry
• ISSN: 1755-4330; 1755-4349
• DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1332

The construction of soft and processable organic material able to display metallic conduction properties—a large density of freely moving charges—is a major challenge for electronics. Films of doped conjugated polymers are widely used as semiconductor devices, but metallic-type transport in the bulk of such materials remains extremely rare. On the other hand, single-walled carbon nanotubes can exhibit remarkably low contact resistances with related large currents, but are intrinsically very difficult to isolate and process. Here, we describe the self-assembly of supramolecular organic nanowires between two metallic electrodes, from a solution of triarylamine derivative, under the simultaneous action of light and electric field triggers. They exhibit a combination of large conductivity values (>5 × 10 3  S m −1 ) and a low interface resistance (