Abstract
Relative surface topography of metal electrodes is one of the subtle issues determining the electrical performance of molecular devices. Systematic conductivity measurements of nanoscale junctions containing self-assembled monolayer of conjugated molecules are reported for a variety of metal electrodes. The monolayer is assembled on 25-100 nm electrode. Another 10-100 nm electrode is defined on top of the monolayer by metal evaporation. The characteristic energy scales are determined from the temperature dependence of conductance and from the non-linear current-voltage characteristics. Unexpectedly, the energy scales of the dominant conductance channels are small in comparison with the molecular level spacing. In all cases, the dominant room temperature conductance is hopping with characteristic energy of the order of 10-100 meV determined by the nature of metal contacts. Relative contribution of tunneling conductance strongly depends on the surface topography of the metal electrodes.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 21 |
Pages (from-to) | 91-99 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering |
Volume | 5592 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 21 2005 |
Event | Nanofabrication: Technologies, Devices, and Applications - Philadelphia, PA, United States Duration: Oct 25 2004 → Oct 28 2004 |
Keywords
- Molecular electronics
- Nanofabrication
- Tunneling
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Computer Science Applications
- Applied Mathematics
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering