One-Nanometer Thin Monolayers Remove the Deleterious Effect of Substrate Defects in Molecular Tunnel Junctions

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• 作者：Li Jiang ; C. S. Suchand Sangeeth ; Li Yuan ; Damien Thompson ; Christian A. Nijhuis
• 刊名：Nano Letters
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：October 14, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：15
• 期：10
• 页码：6643-6649
• 全文大小：469K
• ISSN：1530-6992

文摘

Defects in self-assembled monolayer (SAMs) based junctions cause the largest deviation between predicted and measured values of the tunnelling current. We report the remarkable, seemingly counterintuitive finding that shorter, less-ordered SAMs provide, unlike taller crystalline-like SAMs, higher quality tunnelling barriers on defective substrates, which points to self-repair of liquid-like SAMs on defects. The molecular dynamics show that short-chain molecules can more easily rotate into low-density boundary regions and smoothen out defects than thick solid-like SAMs. Our findings point to an attractive means of removing their deleterious effects simply by using flexible molecules.