AVS 50th International Symposium
    Organic Films and Devices Wednesday Sessions
       Session OF+NS-WeM

Paper OF+NS-WeM7
Mediating Electronic Switching of Single Molecules Using Chemical Interactions

Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 10:20 am, Room 318/319

Session: Molecular Electronics
Presenter: P.A. Lewis, The Pennsylvania State University
Authors: P.A. Lewis, The Pennsylvania State University
C.E. Inman, University of Oregon
J.M. Tour, Rice University
J.E. Hutchison, University of Oregon
P.S. Weiss, The Pennsylvania State University
Correspondent: Click to Email
We have studied conjugated phenylene-ethynylene oligomers inserted into amide-containing alkanethiolate self-assembled monolayers using scanning tunneling microscopy in order to determine their physical and electronic properties when surrounded by a hydrogen-bonded matrix. The phenylene-ethynylene oligomers show stability in two conductance states, an ON and an OFF state. We observe fewer switching events between the ON and OFF states than previously reported for n-alkanethiolate matrices and attribute this to the rigidity due to the hydrogen bonds of the amide groups in the matrix. Furthermore, we demonstrate bias-dependent switching as a result of hydrogen bonding between the substituents of the inserted oligophenylene-ethynylene and the matrix molecules. We demonstrate that the chemical and physical environment of proposed molecular devices is crucial to their function and can be exploited to impart tunable electronic properties.