One-Nanometer Thin Monolayers Remove the Deleterious Effect of Substrate Defects in Molecular Tunnel Junctions.
Defects in self-assembled monolayer (SAMs) based junctions cause the largest deviation between predicted and measured values of the tunnelling current. We report the remarkable, seemingly counterintuitive finding that shorter, less-ordered SAMs provide, unlike taller crystalline-like SAMs, higher quality tunnelling barriers on defective substrates, which points to self-repair of liquid-like SAMs on defects. The molecular dynamics show that short-chain molecules can more easily rotate into low-density boundary regions and smoothen out defects than thick solid-like SAMs. Our findings point to an attractive means of removing their deleterious effects simply by using flexible molecules.
Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore , 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
Li
L
Jiang
Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore , 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
C S Suchand
CS
Sangeeth
Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore , 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
Li
L
Yuan
Materials and Surface Science Institute and Department of Physics and Energy, University of Limerick , Co. Limerick, Ireland.
Damien
D
Thompson
Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore , 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.|Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), 7 Engineering Drive 1, National University of Singapore , Singapore 117574, Singapore.|Centre for Advanced 2D Materials and Graphene Research Centre, National University of Singapore , 6 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117546, Singapore.
Christian A
CA
Nijhuis
EGaIn junctions; Molecular electronics; defects; self-assembled monolayers; self-repair