Estimating single molecule conductance from spontaneous evolution of a molecular contact

M. Gil (1) , T. Malinowski (1) , M. Iazykov (2, 1) , Hubert Klein (1)

1 CINaM - Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille
2 AMU POLYTECH - Polytech Marseille

We present an original method to estimate the conductivity of a single molecule anchored to nanometric-sized metallic electrodes, using a Mechanically Controlled Break Junction (MCBJ) operated at room temperature in liquid. We record the conductance through the metal / molecules / metal nanocontact while keeping the metallic electrodes at a fixed distance. Taking advantage of thermal diffusion and electromigration, we let the contact naturally explore the more stable configurations around a chosen conductance value. The conductance of a single molecule is estimated from a statistical analysis of raw con-ductance and conductance standard deviation data for molecular contacts containing up to 14 molecules. The single molecule conductance values are interpreted as time-averaged conductance of an ensemble of conformers at thermal equilibrium.

Keywords: Single molecule conductance; Break junction; Molecular electronic

Domains: Physics [physics]

M. Gil, T. Malinowski, M. Iazykov, Hubert Klein. Estimating single molecule conductance from spontaneous evolution of a molecular contact. Journal of Applied Physics, 2018, 123 (10), ⟨10.1063/1.5018252⟩. ⟨hal-01586755v2⟩