AVS 47th International Symposium
    Surface Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session SS-TuP

Paper SS-TuP29
Electron Transfer in Organic Monolayers

Tuesday, October 3, 2000, 5:30 pm, Room Exhibit Hall C & D

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: K. Raiber, University of Hamburg, Germany
Authors: K. Raiber, University of Hamburg, Germany
B. Zeysing, University of Hamburg, Germany
A. Terfort, University of Hamburg, Germany
Correspondent: Click to Email
The electron transfer through organic monolayers is a field of research which is receiving an increased interest since these monolayers on conductive materials are not only used as barrier and protection materials@footnote 1,2@ but also as conductors. These new applications for the monolayers require a detailed understanding of the processes during the electron transfer through the monolayer. There are three different possible conduction mechanisms through monolayers discussed in literature:@footnote 3@ the through bond conduction, a through-bond tunneling and a through-space tunneling. To discriminate between the conduction and the tunneling mechanisms we investigated the electron transfer properties of unsubstituted aliphatic and aromatic molecules by cyclovoltammetry. To avoid problems with the match of Fermi-niveaus we attached an electrochemically active group to an aliphatic and an aromatic thiol, respectively, of approximately the same length and investigated the electron transfer within SAMs formed by these molecules on gold surfaces. The exact knowledge of the place of electron generation, which is determined by the immobilisation of the electrochemical active group on a gold electrode, allowed a better determination of the conduction mechanism. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@A. M. Becka, C. J. Miller; J. Phys. Chem. 1992, 96, 2657-2668. @footnote 2@ R. Haag, M. A. Rampi, R. E. Holmlin, G. M. Whitesides; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1999, 121, 7895-7906. @footnote 3@K. Bandyopadhyay, K. Vijayamohanan, M. Venkataramanan, T. Pradeep; Langmuir 1999, 15, 5314-5322.