title: Chemistry. How to assemble a molecular junction.
abstract: Junctions between metals and molecules play an important role in molecular electronics. Advances in this field are hampered by the lack of understanding of the electronic structure of organic-metal interfaces. In his Perspective, Kummel highlights the report by Nazin et al. (3), who have used scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to assemble a metal-molecule-metal junction. Subsequently, they employed the STM tip to probe the atomic structure and local electronic properties of the metal-molecule interface in unprecedented detail. They find evidence for strong coupling between the molecular and metal states. Such coupling affects the conductivity of metal-molecule-metal junctions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. akummel@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Andrew C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Kummel