Single molecular electrets exhibiting single-molecule electric polarization switching have been long desired as a platform for extremely small non-volatile storage devices, although it is controversial because of the poor stability of single molecular electric dipoles. Here we study the single molecular device of Gd@C 82 , where the encapsulated Gd atom forms a charge center, and we have observed a gate-controlled switching behavior between two sets of single-electron-transport stability diagrams.The switching is operated in a hysteresis loop with a coercive gate field of around 0.5 V/nm. Theoretical calculations have assigned the two conductance diagrams to corresponding energy levels of two states that the Gd atom is trapped at two different sites of the C 82 cage, which possess two different permanent electrical dipole orientations. The two dipole states are stabilized by the anisotropic energy and separated by a transition energy barrier of 70 meV. Such switching is then accessed to the electric field driven reorientation of individual dipole while overcoming the barriers by the coercive gate field, and demonstrates the creation of a single molecular electret.
Recently, it has been theoretically predicted that Cd3As2 is a three dimensional Dirac material, a new topological phase discovered after topological insulators, which exhibits a linear energy dispersion in the bulk with massless Dirac fermions. Here, we report on the low-temperature magnetoresistance measurements on a ~50 nm-thick Cd3As2 film. The weak antilocalization under perpendicular magnetic field is discussed based on the two-dimensional Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka (HLN) theory. The electron-electron interaction is addressed as the source of the dephasing based on the temperature-dependent scaling behavior. The weak antilocalization can be also observed while the magnetic field is parallel to the electric field due to the strong interaction between the different conductance channels in this quasi-two-dimensional film.
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