Unimolecular electronics

High rectification ratios of Fe–porphyrin molecules on Au facets

“…The electron is expected to flow from the cathode to an acceptor site, or from a donor site to an anode, but not in the other way. Molecular rectifiers have attracted growing interest due to the potential of being used as active device components within electronic circuitry [2,3].…”

Structural aspects of redox-mediated electron tunneling

“…The construction and the characterization of metaljmoleculejmetal assemblies with device-like functions, such as rectifiers, switches or transistors, require source and drain electrodes, preferably an external gate and one or more low-lying localized molecular electronic levels [3][4][5][6][7]. A number of experimental approaches have been employed to covalently wire molecules of interest to two probing electrodes, including scanning probe microscopies, crossed wire and nanoparticle junctions, mechanical and electromigration break junctions, nanopores and mercury drop electrodes [4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

Controlling the interparticle distance in a 2D molecule–nanoparticle network

“…Research in molecular electronics is strongly inspired by the possibility to encode a well-defined functionality, such as switchability, into a single molecule [1,2]. On the road towards nanoscale functional devices, various fundamental questions arise.…”