title: Detecting Electron Transport of Amino Acids by Using Conductance Measurement.
abstract: The single molecular conductance of amino acids was measured by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) break junction. Conductance measurement of alanine gives out two conductance values at 10-1.85G₀ (1095 nS) and 10-3.7G₀ (15.5 nS), while similar conductance values are also observed for aspartic acid and glutamic acid, which have one more carboxylic acid group compared with alanine. This may show that the backbone of NH₂-C-COOH is the primary means of electron transport in the molecular junction of aspartic acid and glutamic acid. However, NH₂-C-COOH is not the primary means of electron transport in the methionine junction, which may be caused by the strong interaction of the Au-SMe (methyl sulfide) bond for the methionine junction. The current work reveals the important role of the anchoring group in the electron transport in different amino acids junctions.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China. cdaqkougotang@163.com.
authors.forename: Wei-Qiong
authors.initials: WQ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China. huangbing9158@163.com.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China. huangmiaoling886@163.com.
authors.forename: Miao-Ling
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China. penglinlu1992@163.com.
authors.forename: Lin-Lu
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China. zwhong@zjnu.cn.
authors.forename: Ze-Wen
authors.initials: ZW
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China. jfzheng@zjnu.cn.
authors.forename: Ju-Fang
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Materials Protection and Advanced Materials in Electric Power, Shanghai University of Electric Power, Shanghai 200090, China. wenbochen@shiep.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Wen-Bo
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China. li@xmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jian-Feng
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China. xszhou@zjnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiao-Shun
authors.initials: XS
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D002264:Carboxylic Acids; D004579:Electron Transport; D036103:Nanotechnology
chemical_list: D002264:Carboxylic Acids
keywords: STM break junction; amine; amino acid; carboxylic acid; single-molecule junction