Publication Date:
2001-10-20
Description:
A reliable method has been developed for making through-bond electrical contacts to molecules. Current-voltage curves are quantized as integer multiples of one fundamental curve, an observation used to identify single-molecule contacts. The resistance of a single octanedithiol molecule was 900 +/- 50 megohms, based on measurements on more than 1000 single molecules. In contrast, nonbonded contacts to octanethiol monolayers were at least four orders of magnitude more resistive, less reproducible, and had a different voltage dependence, demonstrating that the measurement of intrinsic molecular properties requires chemically bonded contacts.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Cui, X D -- Primak, A -- Zarate, X -- Tomfohr, J -- Sankey, O F -- Moore, A L -- Moore, T A -- Gust, D -- Harris, G -- Lindsay, S M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2001 Oct 19;294(5542):571-4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Physics and Astronomy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11641492" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Chemistry, Physical
;
*Electric Conductivity
;
Electrochemistry
;
Gold
;
Microscopy, Scanning Tunneling
;
Physicochemical Phenomena
;
Reproducibility of Results
;
Sulfhydryl Compounds/*chemistry
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
