title: The fabrication and characterization of adjustable nanogaps between gold electrodes on chip for electrical measurement of single molecules.
abstract: This work reports on a new method to fabricate mechanically controllable break junctions (MCBJ) with finely adjustable nanogaps between two gold electrodes on solid state chips for characterizing electron transport properties of single molecules. The simple, low cost, robust and reproducible fabrication method combines conventional photolithography, chemical etching and electrodeposition to produce suspended electrodes separated with nanogaps. The MCBJ devices fabricated by the method can undergo many cycles in which the nanogap width can be precisely and repeatedly varied from zero to several nanometers. The method improves the success rate of the MCBJ experiments. Using these devices the electron transport properties of a typical molecular system, commercially available benzene-1,4-dithiol (BDT), have been studied. The I-V and G-V characteristic curves of BDT and the conductance value for a single BDT molecule established the excellent device suitability for molecular electronics research.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces and LIA CNRS XiamENS NanoBioChem, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, Fujian, People's Republic of China. zqtian@xmu.edu.cn
authors.forename: Jing-Hua
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schöllhorn
authors.forename: De-Yin
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Maisonhaute
authors.forename: Anna Serra
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Muns
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Amatore
authors.forename: Nong-Jian
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.forename: Zhong-Qun
authors.initials: ZQ
authors.lastname: Tian