Accurate Determination of Plasmonic Fields in Molecular Junctions by Current Rectification at Optical Frequencies

Current rectification, i.e., induction of dc current by oscillating electromagnetic fields, is demonstrated in molecular junctions at an optical frequency. The magnitude of rectification is used to accurately determine the effective oscillating potentials in the junctions induced by the irradiating...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nano letters 2011-07, Vol.11 (7), p.2968-2972
Main Authors: Arielly, Rani, Ofarim, Ayelet, Noy, Gilad, Selzer, Yoram
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations)
Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties
Electric Conductivity
Electromagnetic fields
Electromagnetic induction
Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures
Exact sciences and technology
Lasers
Mathematical analysis
Nanotechnology
Optical frequency
Oscillating
Particle Size
Physics
Plasmonics
Rectification
Sulfhydryl Compounds - chemistry
Surface and interface electron states
Surface Plasmon Resonance
Surface Properties
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Summary:Current rectification, i.e., induction of dc current by oscillating electromagnetic fields, is demonstrated in molecular junctions at an optical frequency. The magnitude of rectification is used to accurately determine the effective oscillating potentials in the junctions induced by the irradiating laser. Since the gap size of the junctions used in this study is precisely determined by the length of the embedded molecules, the oscillating potential can be used to calculate the plasmonic enhancement of the electromagnetic field in the junctions. With a set of junctions based on alkyl thiolated molecules with identical HOMO–LUMO gap and different lengths, an exponential dependence of the plasmonic field enhancement on gap size is observed.
ISSN:1530-6984
1530-6992
DOI:10.1021/nl201517k