Regulating a Benzodifuran Single Molecule Redox Switch via Electrochemical Gating and Optimization of Molecule/Electrode Coupling

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• 作者：Zhihai Li ; Hui Li ; Songjie Chen ; Toni Froehlich ; Chenyi Yi ; Christian Sch枚nenberger ; Michel Calame ; Silvio Decurtins ; Shi-Xia Liu ; Eric Borguet
• 刊名：Journal of the American Chemical Society
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：June 25, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：136
• 期：25
• 页码：8867-8870
• 全文大小：278K
• ISSN：1520-5126

文摘

We report a novel strategy for the regulation of charge transport through single molecule junctions via the combination of external stimuli of electrode potential, internal modulation of molecular structures, and optimization of anchoring groups. We have designed redox-active benzodifuran (BDF) compounds as functional electronic units to fabricate metal鈥搈olecule鈥搈etal (m鈥揗鈥搈) junction devices by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and mechanically controllable break junctions (MCBJ). The conductance of thiol-terminated BDF can be tuned by changing the electrode potentials showing clearly an off/on/off single molecule redox switching effect. To optimize the response, a BDF molecule tailored with carbodithioate (鈭扖S₂^{鈥?/sup>) anchoring groups was synthesized. Our studies show that replacement of thiol by carbodithioate not only enhances the junction conductance but also substantially improves the switching effect by enhancing the on/off ratio from 2.5 to 8.}