Adsorption-Induced Solvent-Based Electrostatic Gating of Charge Transport through Molecular Junctions

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• 作者：Michele Kotiuga ; Pierre Darancet ; Carlos R. Arroyo ; Latha Venkataraman ; Jeffrey B. Neaton
• 刊名：Nano Letters
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：July 8, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：15
• 期：7
• 页码：4498-4503
• 全文大小：321K
• ISSN：1530-6992

文摘

Recent experiments have shown that transport properties of molecular-scale devices can be reversibly altered by the surrounding solvent. Here, we use a combination of first-principles calculations and experiment to explain this change in transport properties through a shift in the local electrostatic potential at the junction caused by nearby conducting and solvent molecules chemically bound to the electrodes. This effect is found to alter the conductance of 4,4鈥?bipyridine-gold junctions by more than 50%. Moreover, we develop a general electrostatic model that quantitatively relates the conductance and dipoles associated with the bound solvent and conducting molecules. Our work shows that solvent-induced effects can be used to control charge and energy transport at molecular-scale interfaces.