Related papers: Electron transport through rectifying self-assembl…
We demonstrate a molecular rectifying junction made from a sequential self-assembly on silicon. The device structure consists of only one conjugated (p) group and an alkyl spacer chain. We obtain rectification ratios up to 37 and threshold…
Molecular rectifiers are key functional components of molecular-scale integrated circuits, yet achieving high rectification ratios remains a longstanding challenge due to the intrinsic symmetry of resonant tunneling and the complexity of…
The physical origin of Fermi level pinning (FLP) at metal/Ge interfaces has been argued over a long period. Using the Fe$_{3}$Si/Ge(111) heterostructure developed originally, we can explore electrical transport properties through atomically…
Electrical current rectification is an interesting electronic feature, popularly known as a diode. Achieving a high rectification ratio in a molecular junction has been a long-standing goal in molecular electronics. The present work…
The alignment of the frontier orbital energies of an adsorbed molecule with the substrate Fermi level at metal-organic interfaces is a fundamental observable of significant practical importance in nanoscience and beyond. Typical density…
The dependence of the transport properties on the specific location of the Fermi level in molecular electronics devices is studied by using electrodes of different materials. The zero-bias transport properties are shown to depend…
The characteristics of molecular electronic devices are critically determined by metal-organic interfaces, which influence the arrangement of the orbital levels that participate in charge transport. Studies on self-assembled monolayers…
We compare the charge transport characteristics of heavy doped p- and n-Si-alkyl chain/Hg junctions. Photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS, IPES and XPS) results for the molecule-Si band alignment at equilibrium show the Fermi level to LUMO…
Electron transfer processes at molecule-semiconductor interfaces involve a complex mixture of thermionic, tunneling and hopping events. Traditionally these processes have been modeled in a piece-meal fashion, relying on phenomenological…
We demonstrate large rectification ratios (> 100) in single-molecule junctions based on a metal-oxide cluster (polyoxometalate), using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) both at ambient conditions and at low temperature. These…
At semiconductor-metal junctions, the Schottky barrier height is generally fixed by "Fermi-level pinning". We find that when a semiconducting carbon nanotube is end-contacted to a metal (the optinal geometry for nanodevices), the behavior…
The alignment of the Fermi level of a metal electrode within the gap of the highest occupied and lowest unoccupied orbital of a molecule is a key quantity in molecular electronics. Depending on the type of molecule and the interface…
Controlling the spin transport at the single-molecule level, especially without the use of ferromagnetic contacts, becomes a focus of research in spintronics. Inspired by the progress on atomic-level molecular synthesis, through…
First-principles calculations of polar semiconductor nanorods reveal that their dipole moments are strongly influenced by Fermi level pinning. The Fermi level for an isolated nanorod is found to coincide with a significant density of…
Topological insulators are of interest for many applications in electronics and optoelectronics, but harnessing their unique properties requires detailed understanding and control of charge injection at electrical contacts. Here we present…
The metal-induced gap states (MIGS) are commonly believed to cause the strong Femi level pinning (FLP) in the metal-semiconductors contacts. Here, we unravel unambiguously that the dangling bonds-induced interface states play a crucial…
Molecular-scale diodes made from self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) could complement silicon-based technologies with smaller, cheaper, and more versatile devices. However, advancement of this emerging technology is limited by insufficient…
Electronic conductance through a single molecule is sensitive towards its structural orientation between two electrodes, owing to the distribution of molecular orbitals and their coupling to the electrode levels, that are governed by…
Electronic transport across n-Si-alkyl monolayer/Hg junctions is, at reverse and low forward bias, independent of alkyl chain-length from 18 down to 1 or 2 carbons! This and further recent results indicate that electron transport is…
We present a unified bond dipole theory for metal-semiconductor interfaces to explain the microscopic origin of interface dipoles and Fermi level pinning (FLP) in terms of Harrison's bond-orbital model. By combining first-principles…