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Molecular electronics

Flipping a single proton switch

Nature Nanotechnology volume 7, pages 5–6 (2012)Cite this article

A four-level conductance switch can be created by using a scanning tunnelling microscope to remove a hydrogen atom from the central cavity of a porphyrin molecule.

The basic idea of molecular electronics — using molecules as components in electrical circuitry — has been verified experimentally by using molecules as diodes, switches and transistors1,2,3. The use of molecules in electronics is conceptually appealing because the required function can be encoded into the molecule through chemical synthesis, making molecules an ideal tunable nanoscale building block. However, the molecular components have to be interfaced with the macroscopic world and this places a number of constraints on their design.

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Figure 1: Atomic control of molecular switches based on porphyrin molecules.

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  1. Peter Liljeroth is at the Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, PO Box 15100, 00076, Aalto, Finland

    Peter Liljeroth

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  1. Peter Liljeroth
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Correspondence to Peter Liljeroth.

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Liljeroth, P. Flipping a single proton switch. Nature Nanotech 7, 5–6 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.242

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