The construction of soft and processable organic material able to display metallic conduction properties-a large density of freely moving charges-is a major challenge for electronics. Films of doped conjugated polymers are widely used as semiconductor devices, but metallic-type transport in the bulk of such materials remains extremely rare. On the other hand, single-walled carbon nanotubes can exhibit remarkably low contact resistances with related large currents, but are intrinsically very difficult to isolate and process. Here, we describe the self-assembly of supramolecular organic nanowires between two metallic electrodes, from a solution of triarylamine derivative, under the simultaneous action of light and electric field triggers. They exhibit a combination of large conductivity values (>5 × 10(3) S m(-1)) and a low interface resistance (<2 × 10(-4) Ω m). Moreover, the resistance of nanowires in series with metal interfaces systematically decreases when the temperature is lowered to 1.5 K, revealing an intrinsic metallic behaviour.

Charge transport in networks of nanoparticles linked by molecular spacers is investigated. Remarkably, in the regime where cotunneling dominates, the molecular signature of a device is strongly enhanced. We demonstrate that the resistance ratio of identical networks with different molecular spacers increases dramatically, from an initial value of 50 up to 10(5) , upon entering the cotunneling regime. Our work shows that intrinsic molecular properties can be amplified through nanoscale engineering.