Demonstration of unimolecular electrical rectification in hexadecylquinolinium tricyanoquinodimethanide

Abstract

Asymmetries in the macroscopic and the nanoscopic DC electrical conductivity through Langmuir–Blodgett multilayers and monolayers of γ‐(n‐hexadecyl)quinolinium tricyanoquinodimethanide (HDQ‐3CNQ, 1) are due to a transition from the ground‐state zwitterion to a probably neutral excited‐state conformer, thus confirming without a shadow of a doubt the rectification of electrical current by a single molecule. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.