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Van der Waals interactions at metal/organic interfaces at the single-molecule level

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 872–876 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Van der Waals (vdW) interaction, and its subtle interplay with chemically specific interactions and surface roughness at metal/organic interfaces, is critical to the understanding of structure–function relations in diverse areas, including catalysis, molecular electronics and self-assembly1,2,3. However, vdW interactions remain challenging to characterize directly at the fundamental, single-molecule level both in experiments and in first principles calculations with accurate treatment of the non-local, London dispersion interactions. In particular, for metal/organic interfaces, efforts so far have largely focused on model systems consisting of adsorbed molecules on flat metallic surfaces with minimal specific chemical interaction4,5,6,7,8,9. Here we show, through measurements of single-molecule mechanics, that pyridine derivatives10,11 can bind to nanostructured Au electrodes through an additional binding mechanism beyond the chemically specific N–Au donor–acceptor bond. Using density functional theory simulations we show that vdW interactions between the pyridine ring and Au electrodes can play a key role in the junction mechanics. These measurements thus provide a quantitative characterization of vdW interactions at metal/organic interfaces at the single-molecule level.

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Figure 1: Simultaneous measurement of single-molecule conductance and force.
Figure 2: Rupture force and stiffness of single-molecule junctions.
Figure 3: Structural rearrangements in high-conductance junctions.
Figure 4: Structural evolution during junction elongation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Career CHE-07-44185) and by the Packard Foundation. A portion of this work was performed using facilities in the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory and supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract number DE-AC02-98CH10886 (M.S.H.). L.V. acknowledges support from the NSF DMR-1122594.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    Sriharsha V. Aradhya, Michael Frei & L. Venkataraman

  2. Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA

    Mark S. Hybertsen

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  1. Sriharsha V. Aradhya
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  2. Michael Frei
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  3. Mark S. Hybertsen
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  4. L. Venkataraman
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Contributions

Experiments were conceived by S.V.A. and L.V. and performed by S.V.A. and M.F. All calculations were performed by M.S.H. Data analysis was done by S.V.A., who co-wrote the paper with M.S.H. and L.V.

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Correspondence to Mark S. Hybertsen or L. Venkataraman.

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Aradhya, S., Frei, M., Hybertsen, M. et al. Van der Waals interactions at metal/organic interfaces at the single-molecule level. Nature Mater 11, 872–876 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3403

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