Pulling and Stretching a Molecular Wire to Tune its Conductance

Gaël Reecht; Hervé Bulou; Fabrice Scheurer; Virginie Speisser; Fabrice Mathevet; César González; Yannick J. Dappe; Guillaume Schull

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01283

Pulling and Stretching a Molecular Wire to Tune its Conductance

Gaël Reecht, Hervé Bulou, Fabrice Scheurer, Virginie Speisser, Fabrice Mathevet, César González, Yannick J. Dappe, Guillaume Schull

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A scanning tunnelling microscope is used to pull a polythiophene wire from a Au(111) surface while measuring the current traversing the junction. Abrupt current increases measured during the lifting procedure are associated with the detachment of molecular subunits, in apparent contradiction with the expected exponential decrease of the conductance with wire length. Ab initio simulations reproduce the experimental data and demonstrate that this unexpected behavior is due to release of mechanical stress in the wire, paving the way to mechanically gated single-molecule electronic devices.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2987-2992
Number of pages	6
Journal	Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Volume	6
Issue number	15
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01283
Publication status	Published - Aug 6 2015
Externally published	Yes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Materials Science(all)
Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01283

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abstract = "A scanning tunnelling microscope is used to pull a polythiophene wire from a Au(111) surface while measuring the current traversing the junction. Abrupt current increases measured during the lifting procedure are associated with the detachment of molecular subunits, in apparent contradiction with the expected exponential decrease of the conductance with wire length. Ab initio simulations reproduce the experimental data and demonstrate that this unexpected behavior is due to release of mechanical stress in the wire, paving the way to mechanically gated single-molecule electronic devices.",

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AU - Reecht, Gaël

AU - Bulou, Hervé

AU - Scheurer, Fabrice

AU - Speisser, Virginie

AU - Mathevet, Fabrice

AU - González, César

AU - Dappe, Yannick J.

AU - Schull, Guillaume

PY - 2015/8/6

Y1 - 2015/8/6

N2 - A scanning tunnelling microscope is used to pull a polythiophene wire from a Au(111) surface while measuring the current traversing the junction. Abrupt current increases measured during the lifting procedure are associated with the detachment of molecular subunits, in apparent contradiction with the expected exponential decrease of the conductance with wire length. Ab initio simulations reproduce the experimental data and demonstrate that this unexpected behavior is due to release of mechanical stress in the wire, paving the way to mechanically gated single-molecule electronic devices.

AB - A scanning tunnelling microscope is used to pull a polythiophene wire from a Au(111) surface while measuring the current traversing the junction. Abrupt current increases measured during the lifting procedure are associated with the detachment of molecular subunits, in apparent contradiction with the expected exponential decrease of the conductance with wire length. Ab initio simulations reproduce the experimental data and demonstrate that this unexpected behavior is due to release of mechanical stress in the wire, paving the way to mechanically gated single-molecule electronic devices.

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JO - Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

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Pulling and Stretching a Molecular Wire to Tune its Conductance

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