Optoelectronic switching of addressable self-assembled monolayer molecular junctions

Abstract

This letter reports on the observation of optoelectronic switching in addressable molecular crossbar junctions fabricated using polymer stamp-printing method. The active medium in the junction is a molecular self-assembled monolayer softly sandwiched between gold electrodes. The molecular junctions are investigated through currentvoltage measurements at varied temperature (from 95 to 300 K) in high vacuum condition. The junctions show reversible optoelectronic switching with the highest on/off ratio of 3 orders of magnitude at 95 K. The switching behavior is independent of both optical wavelength and molecular structure, while it strongly depends on the temperature. Initial analysis indicates that the distinct binding nature of the molecule/electrode interfaces play a dominant role in the switching performance.

Nanoscale Data Storage

“…Figure 9. Schematic diagrams showing the procedure of molecular crossbar fabrication using PDMS stamp-printing techniques [48]. Table 3.…”

“…For Au bars on Si (100) . Chemical structure of the molecules investigated using the testbed of PDMS stamp-printing crossbar junction [48]. Fig.…”

“…12 presents the optoelectronic switching of a nonanedithiol junction under stimulus of a fluorescent light signal. More interestingly, the conductance of the molecular junctions can be reversibly tuned via varying the light intensity [48], which may make them serve as a prototype for optical gated molecular transistors. It is indicated that the switching is due to light induced change of the tunneling parameters at the top PDMS-printed Au/molecule interface.…”

“…Some of these predictions have been proved by recent experimental results. For example, it has been demonstrated that the PDMS stamp-printing molecular junctions really respond to the stimulus of external optical signals with a different wavelength [48].…”

Nanotribology of self-assembled monolayer with a probe tip investigated using molecular dynamics simulations

“…Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have been applied in biological (Mrksich, 2009;Matsunaga et al, 2007;Chang et al, 2008), physical (Henry et al, 2006), optical Li, 2009), and chemical (Bowen et al, 2008) sensors. SAMs have proven to be effective nano-lubricants in nano/microelectromechanical systems (N/MEMS) and in nanoimprinting lithography (NIL) (Guo, 2004;Kohno et al, 2010) helping to avoid failure during the operation of these devices (Maboudian et al, 2000;Tambe and Bhushan, 2005).…”