title: Silicon ring strain creates high-conductance pathways in single-molecule circuits.
abstract: Here we demonstrate for the first time that strained silanes couple directly to gold electrodes in break-junction conductance measurements. We find that strained silicon molecular wires terminated by alkyl sulfide aurophiles behave effectively as single-molecule parallel circuits with competing sulfur-to-sulfur (low G) and sulfur-to-silacycle (high G) pathways. We can switch off the high conducting sulfur-to-silacycle pathway by altering the environment of the electrode surface to disable the Au-silacycle coupling. Additionally, we can switch between conductive pathways in a single molecular junction by modulating the tip-substrate electrode distance. This study provides a new molecular design to control electronics in silicon-based single molecule wires.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Columbia University , New York, New York 10027, United States.
authors.forename: Timothy A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Jonathan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Widawsky
authors.forename: Haixing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Rebekka S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Klausen
authors.forename: James L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Leighton
authors.forename: Michael L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Steigerwald
authors.forename: Latha
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Venkataraman
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nuckolls