Chains of carbon atoms: A vision or a new nanomaterial?

• Florian Banhart

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 559–569, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.58

• STM [42]. Oligoynes functionalized with anchor groups have been contacted by an STM tip, in part in solution. However, it is unclear whether individual monoatomic chains without side-links to other molecules have been present between the anchors and served as conductivity-limiting molecular junctions

Carbon nano-onions (multi-layer fullerenes): chemistry and applications

• Juergen Bartelmess and
• Silvia Giordani

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1980–1998, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.207

• , transient absorption studies of covalently functionalized CNOs yielded evidence for a strong difference of the absorption coefficients in the ground and excited state, which gives further rise to a possible application of this CNO material in optical limiting [25]. Molecular junctions in STM In another

• recent report, the groups of Plonska-Brzezinska and Echegoyen prepared sulfide-terminated CNO derivatives, which can be used as molecular junctions in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) [83]. This enabled the authors to study the conductivity of CNOs and compare their properties with comparable

High speed e-beam lithography for gold nanoarray fabrication and use in nanotechnology

• Jorge Trasobares,
• François Vaurette,
• Marc François,
• Hans Romijn,
• Jean-Louis Codron,
• Dominique Vuillaume,
• Didier Théron and
• Nicolas Clément

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1918–1925, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.202

• ) is used as a top electrode and the gold nanocrystals act as bottom electrodes. Within a single CAFM image it is possible to get statistics on thousands of molecular junctions which allowed us, in particular, to evidence the presence of 2 phases of organization on alkyl-thiolated gold nanoparticles

The influence of molecular mobility on the properties of networks of gold nanoparticles and organic ligands

• Edwin J. Devid,
• Paulo N. Martinho,
• M. Venkata Kamalakar,
• Úna Prendergast,
• Christian Kübel,
• Tibebe Lemma,
• Jean-François Dayen,
• Tia. E. Keyes,
• Bernard Doudin,
• Mario Ruben and
• Sense Jan van der Molen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1664–1674, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.177

• , proposing a new approach for understanding how disorder can impact the transport properties in molecular junctions. Additional calculations will be required to extend our hypothesis of fluctuations-enhanced transport between particles, taking into account the percolation character of transport in

The role of surface corrugation and tip oscillation in single-molecule manipulation with a non-contact atomic force microscope

• Christian Wagner,
• Norman Fournier,
• F. Stefan Tautz and
• Ruslan Temirov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 202–209, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.22

• experiment, and facilitates a better understanding of the mechanics of single-molecular junctions. Our simulations reveal that the surface corrugation adds a positive frequency shift to the measurement that generates an apparent repulsive force. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the scatter observed in the

• manipulation by including the three factors mentioned above into the simulation model and by demonstrating that even their qualitative consideration improves the correspondence between simulations and experiment, and therefore facilitates an improved understanding of the mechanics of single-molecular junctions

Structural and electronic properties of oligo- and polythiophenes modified by substituents

• Simon P. Rittmeyer and
• Axel Groß

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 909–919, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.101

• decisive influence on the conductivity of molecular junctions [47]. Table 3 lists calculated bond lengths for PTp in different oxidized states. When the polymer is neutral, a unit cell consisting of two thiophene rings contains 48 valence electrons. Obviously there are some bonds that lengthen and some

Current–voltage characteristics of single-molecule diarylethene junctions measured with adjustable gold electrodes in solution

• Bernd M. Briechle,
• Youngsang Kim,
• Philipp Ehrenreich,
• Artur Erbe,
• Dmytro Sysoiev,
• Thomas Huhn,
• Ulrich Groth and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 798–808, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.89

• , Germany Chemistry Department, University of Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany 10.3762/bjnano.3.89 Abstract We report on an experimental analysis of the charge transport through sulfur-free photochromic molecular junctions. The conductance of individual molecules contacted with gold electrodes and the

• (MCBJs) [5][12] and modified STM [26] techniques were applied to create single-molecular junctions. It has been argued that strong electronic coupling between electrodes and the switching core may block the switching procedure [5][27][28][29]. This strong coupling is supposed to be enhanced by the

Nanostructures for sensors, electronics, energy and environment

• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 351–352, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.40

• this respect the present Thematic Series is an interesting follow-up to the series “Transport through molecular junctions” published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology in 2011 [1]. Many of these advances have been possible thanks to the discovery of new aggregation forms of materials at the

Current-induced forces in mesoscopic systems: A scattering-matrix approach

• Niels Bode,
• Silvia Viola Kusminskiy,
• Reinhold Egger and
• Felix von Oppen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 144–162, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.15

• nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). The coupling between mechanical and electronic degrees of freedom is the defining characteristic of NEMS [9][10], such as suspended quantum dots [11], carbon nanotubes or graphene sheets [12][13], one-dimensional wires [14], and molecular junctions [15][16]. For these systems, a

Transmission eigenvalue distributions in highly conductive molecular junctions

• Justin P. Bergfield,
• Joshua D. Barr and
• Charles A. Stafford

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 40–51, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.5

• then assumed to possess azimuthal and inversion symmetry, and the effective Hamiltonian was required to satisfy particle–hole symmetry and be explicitly local. Such an effective field theory is preferable to semiempirical methods for applications in molecular junctions because the effective interaction

• , however, suggests that a full many-body calculation of a higher-order moment, such as the shot noise, may exhibit equally interesting phenomena. Conclusion We have developed a state-of-the-art technique to model the lead–molecule coupling in highly conductive molecular junctions. The bonding between the

When “small” terms matter: Coupled interference features in the transport properties of cross-conjugated molecules

• Gemma C. Solomon,
• Justin P. Bergfield,
• Charles A. Stafford and
• Mark A. Ratner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 862–871, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.95

• transport, e.g., from the σ-systems, inelastic processes, etc., may become physically relevant since the nodes of each contribution will not necessarily coincide. Recently, calculations of transport through biphenyl-based molecular junctions suggest that, for sufficiently large bias voltages, interference

Towards quantitative accuracy in first-principles transport calculations: The GW method applied to alkane/gold junctions

• Mikkel Strange and
• Kristian S. Thygesen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 746–754, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.82

• molecular junctions limits the predictive power of the DFT-based approach to qualitative trends. It is now broadly accepted that the failure of DFT is mainly due to its incorrect description of the molecular energy levels. Indeed, physically motivated correction schemes have shown that much-improved

• importance for the transport properties of molecular junctions and seems to be the dominant effect at low bias voltage. At higher bias voltages, many-body calculations on small model systems suggest that electron correlations induce additional shifting and broadening of the molecular levels, which can also

• have unraveled the important role of exchange–correlation effects for the energy-level alignment and low-bias conductance of gold/alkanediamine molecular junctions. Based on many-body GW calculations we found that the origin of the overestimation of the contact conductance, Gc, by standard DFT is due

Charge transport in a zinc–porphyrin single-molecule junction

• Mickael L. Perrin,
• Christian A. Martin,
• Ferry Prins,
• Ahson J. Shaikh,
• Rienk Eelkema,
• Jan H. van Esch,
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek,
• Herre S. J. van der Zant and
• Diana Dulić

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 714–719, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.77

• )porphyrin) molecular junctions using the lithographic mechanically controllable break-junction (MCBJ) technique at room temperature and cryogenic temperature (6 K). We combined low-bias statistical measurements with spectroscopy of the molecular levels in the form of I(V) characteristics. This combination

• the electrodes to form a metallic contact. In this way, changes in the configurations of the molecular junctions occurring as a function of electrode spacing can be accurately probed. I(V)s taken at room temperature for several electrode spacings of the junctions exposed to DCM and ZnTPPdT–Pyr are

• molecular junction are not always reflected in the low-bias trace histograms, supporting high-bias I(V) characteristics are essential for the interpretation of such histograms. Conclusion In summary, we investigated charge transport in ZnTPPdT–Pyr molecular junctions using the lithographic MCBJ technique

An MCBJ case study: The influence of π-conjugation on the single-molecule conductance at a solid/liquid interface

• Wenjing Hong,
• Hennie Valkenier,
• Gábor Mészáros,
• David Zsolt Manrique,
• Artem Mishchenko,
• Alexander Putz,
• Pavel Moreno García,
• Colin J. Lambert,
• Jan C. Hummelen and
• Thomas Wandlowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 699–713, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.76

• molecular junctions. We describe in this paper the construction of a mechanically controlled break-junction setup (MCBJ) equipped with a highly sensitive log I–V converter in order to measure ultralow conductances of molecular rods trapped between two gold leads. The current resolution of the setup reaches

• the molecular (-junction) conductance. However, due to the relative low conductance of broken-conjugated and cross-conjugated rigid rodlike molecules [26], reliable transport measurements through these types of molecular junctions are still a challenging topic. Charge-transport characteristics of

• al. developed an STM-BJ technique based on the formation and breaking of thousands of individual molecular junctions by repeatedly approaching and withdrawing a STM tip towards and away from a substrate in the presence of sample molecules [34]. The MCBJ technique, as compared with the STM-BJ approach

Transport through molecular junctions

• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 691–692, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.74

• the problem and inherent to (single) molecular junctions. The study of such junctions requires the gathering of statistics covering many configurations. The field of study of electron transport through molecular junctions requires input from many subdisciplines and this interdisciplinary character

Charge transfer through single molecule contacts: How reliable are rate descriptions?

• Denis Kast,
• L. Kecke and
• J. Ankerhold

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 416–426, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.47

• elements of the reduced density matrix, provides very accurate solutions even for stronger electron–phonon coupling. Conclusion: Rate descriptions and master equations offer a versatile model to describe and understand charge transfer processes through molecular junctions. Such methods are computationally

• or even superconducting metallic leads [2][3]. The objective is to exploit nonlinear transport properties of molecular junctions as the elementary units for a future molecular electronics. While the initial experiments were operated at room temperature, low temperatures down to the millikelvin range

• proper design of molecular junctions to exploit these processes. Information about specific molecular set-ups appears merely in the form of parameters which offer a large degree of flexibility. In general, to attack the respective many body problems, perturbative schemes have been applied, the most