Investigations of conductance of photochromic switching molecules

Recent experimental work has confirmed a dramatic conductance enhancement of more than two orders of magnitude after the optical switching between two molecular isomers of a dithienylethene‐derivative on gold. To determine which dithienylethene‐derivative may be the optimal candidate for use as an o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physica Status Solidi (b) 2004-08, Vol.241 (10), p.2326-2330
Main Authors: Speyer, Gil, Li, Jun, Sankey, Otto F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
73.20.−r
73.40.−c
Applied sciences
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Molecular electronics, nanoelectronics
Physics
Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices
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Summary:Recent experimental work has confirmed a dramatic conductance enhancement of more than two orders of magnitude after the optical switching between two molecular isomers of a dithienylethene‐derivative on gold. To determine which dithienylethene‐derivative may be the optimal candidate for use as an optical molecular switch, it is necessary to understand the nature of the conductance switching. To this end, a variety of theoretical tools were employed to study the critical aspects of this unique metal‐molecule‐metal junction. A plane wave based density functional method revealed marked differences between the two isomers with regard to the line‐up of the molecular states and the contact states. A local orbital based density functional method was used to generate a tractable Hamiltonian for a Landauer based transport calculation. Three different derivatives are analyzed to determine which may be an appropriate candidate in a molecular electronic device. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
ISSN:0370-1972
1521-3951
DOI:10.1002/pssb.200404941