An Electrically Driven and Readable Molecular Monolayer Switch Based on a Solid Electrolyte.
The potential application of molecular switches as active elements in information storage has been demonstrated through numerous works. Importantly, such switching capabilities have also been reported for self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). SAMs of electroactive molecules have recently been exploited as electrochemical switches. Typically, the state of these switches could be read out through their optical and/or magnetic response. These output reading processes are difficult to integrate into devices, and furthermore, there is a need to use liquid environments for switching the redox-active molecular systems. In this work, both of these challenges were overcome by using an ionic gel as the electrolyte medium, which led to an unprecedented solid-state device based on a single molecular layer. Moreover, electrochemical impedance has been successfully exploited as the output of the system.
Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and CIBER-BBN, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain).
Elena
E
Marchante
Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and CIBER-BBN, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain).
Núria
N
Crivillers
Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and CIBER-BBN, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain).
Moritz
M
Buhl
Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and CIBER-BBN, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain).
Jaume
J
Veciana
Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and CIBER-BBN, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain). mmas@icmab.es.
Marta
M
Mas-Torrent
electrochemical impedance spectroscopy; ferrocene; molecular switches; self-assembled monolayers; solid electrolytes