"Assessment of a nanoparticle bridge platform for molecular electronics
measurements".
A combination of electron beam lithography, photolithography and focused
ion beam milling was used to create a nanogap platform, which was bridged by
gold nanoparticles in order to make electrical measurements and assess the
platform under ambient conditions. Non-functionalized electrodes were tested to
determine the intrinsic response of the platform and it was found that creating
devices in ambient conditions requires careful cleaning and awareness of the
contributions contaminants may make to measurements. The platform was then used
to make measurements on octanethiol (OT) and biphenyldithiol (BPDT) molecules
by functionalizing the nanoelectrodes with the molecules prior to bridging the
nanogap with nanoparticles. Measurements on OT show that it is possible to make
measurements on relatively small numbers of molecules, but that a large
variation in response can be expected when one of the metal–molecule junctions
is physisorbed, which was partially explained by attachment of OT molecules to
different sites on the surface of the Au electrode using a density functional
theory calculation. On the other hand, when dealing with BPDT, high yields for
device creation are very difficult to achieve under ambient conditions.
Significant hysteresis in the I–V curves of BPDT was also observed, which was
attributed primarily to voltage induced changes at the interface between the
molecule and the metal.
"Assessment of a nanoparticle bridge platform for molecular electronics measurements".
S H M Jafri, T Blom, K Leifer, M Strømme, H Löfås, A Grigoriev, R Ahuja and K Welch.
Nanotechnology 21 (2010) 435204 (10pp).
doi:10.1088/0957-4484/21/43/435204.
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