Evidence of the Key Role of Metal-Molecule Bonding in Metal-Molecule-Metal Transport Experiments

Lionel Patrone (1) , Serge Palacin (2) , Julienne Charlier (2) , Franck Armand (1) , Jean-Philippe Bourgoin (1) , Hao Tang (3) , Sebastien Gauthier (3)

1 LEM - Laboratoire d'Electronique Moléculaire
2 LCSI - Laboratoire de Chimie des Surfaces et Interfaces
3 CEMES - Centre d'élaboration de matériaux et d'études structurales

The transport properties of two oligothiophene derivatives, that differ only by the chemical group coupling to gold, are compared. It is shown that the role of the coupling group in the transport properties can be decoupled from that of the conjugated body of the molecules and that Se provides a better electronic coupling than S. These results are accounted for semi-quantitatively within the frame of the scattering theory of transport, using results from UPS experiments as inputs for the position in energy of the molecular orbitals with respect to the electrodes Fermi level

Domains: Material chemistry

Lionel Patrone, Serge Palacin, Julienne Charlier, Franck Armand, Jean-Philippe Bourgoin, et al.. Evidence of the Key Role of Metal-Molecule Bonding in Metal-Molecule-Metal Transport Experiments. Physical Review Letters, 2003, 91, pp.96802. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.096802⟩. ⟨cea-01056956⟩