title: Electrostatic control over temperature-dependent tunnelling across a single-molecule junction.
abstract: Understanding how the mechanism of charge transport through molecular tunnel junctions depends on temperature is crucial to control electronic function in molecular electronic devices. With just a few systems investigated as a function of bias and temperature so far, thermal effects in molecular tunnel junctions remain poorly understood. Here we report a detailed charge transport study of an individual redox-active ferrocene-based molecule over a wide range of temperatures and applied potentials. The results show the temperature dependence of the current to vary strongly as a function of the gate voltage. Specifically, the current across the molecule exponentially increases in the Coulomb blockade regime and decreases at the charge degeneracy points, while remaining temperature-independent at resonance. Our observations can be well accounted for by a formal single-level tunnelling model where the temperature dependence relies on the thermal broadening of the Fermi distributions of the electrons in the leads.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA.
authors.forename: Alvar R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Garrigues
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
authors.forename: Lejia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA.
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Del Barco
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.|Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, National University of Singapore, 6 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117546, Singapore.
authors.forename: Christian A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Nijhuis