title: A detailed experimental and theoretical study into the properties of C60 dumbbell junctions.
abstract: A combined experimental and theoretical investigation is carried out into the electrical transport across a fullerene dumbbell one-molecule junction. The newly designed molecule comprises two C60 s connected to a fluorene backbone via cyclopropyl groups. It is wired between gold electrodes under ambient conditions by pressing the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) onto one of the C60 groups. The STM allows us to identify a single molecule before the junction is formed through imaging, which means unambiguously that only one molecule is wired. Once lifted, the same molecule could be wired many times as it was strongly fixed to the tip, and a high conductance state close to 10(-2) G0 is found. The results also suggest that the relative conductance fluctuations are low as a result of the low mobility of the molecule. Theoretical analysis indicates that the molecule is connected directly to one electrode through the central fluorene, and that to bind it to the gold fully it has to be pushed through a layer of adsorbates naturally present in the experiment.
authors: Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK.
authors: Katalin
authors: K
authors: Gillemot
authors: Charalambos
authors: C
authors: Evangeli
authors: Edmund
authors: E
authors: Leary
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: La Rosa
authors: M Teresa
authors: MT
authors: González
authors: Salvatore
authors: S
authors: Filippone
authors: Iain
authors: I
authors: Grace
authors: Gabino
authors: G
authors: Rubio-Bollinger
authors: Jaime
authors: J
authors: Ferrer
authors: Nazario
authors: N
authors: Martín
authors: Colin J
authors: CJ
authors: Lambert
authors: Nicolás
authors: N
authors: Agraït
keywords: STM; density functional theory; fullerenes; molecular electronics; single molecule conductance