Break junctions provide tip-shaped contact electrodes that are fundamental components of nano and molecular electronics. However, the fabrication of break junctions remains notoriously time-consuming and difficult to parallelize. Here we demonstrate true parallel fabrication of gold break junctions featuring sub-3 nm gaps on the wafer-scale, by relying on a novel self-breaking mechanism based on controlled crack formation in notched bridge structures. We achieve fabrication densities as high as 7 million junctions per cm2, with fabrication yields of around 7% for obtaining crack-defined break junctions with sub-3 nm gaps of fixed gap width that exhibit electron tunneling. We also form molecular junctions using dithiol-terminated oligo(phenylene ethynylene) (OPE3) to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach for electrical probing of molecules down to liquid helium temperatures. Our technology opens a whole new range of experimental opportunities for nano and molecular electronics applications, by enabling very large-scale fabrication of solid-state break junctions.
@article{arxiv.1805.08724,
title = {Massively parallel fabrication of crack-defined gold break junctions featuring sub-3 nm gaps for molecular devices},
author = {Valentin Dubois and Shyamprasad N. Raja and Pascal Gehring and Sabina Caneva and Herre S. J. van der Zant and Frank Niklaus and Göran Stemme},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.08724},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
includes supporting information, 7 Figures in main text, 7 Figures in supporting information, compilation of images in supporting information