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Field-induced conductance switching by charge-state alternation in organometallic single-molecule junctions

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 170–176 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Charge transport through single molecules can be influenced by the charge and spin states of redox-active metal centres placed in the transport pathway. These intrinsic properties are usually manipulated by varying the molecule's electrochemical and magnetic environment, a procedure that requires complex setups with multiple terminals. Here we show that oxidation and reduction of organometallic compounds containing either Fe, Ru or Mo centres can solely be triggered by the electric field applied to a two-terminal molecular junction. Whereas all compounds exhibit bias-dependent hysteresis, the Mo-containing compound additionally shows an abrupt voltage-induced conductance switching, yielding high-to-low current ratios exceeding 1,000 at bias voltages of less than 1.0 V. Density functional theory calculations identify a localized, redox-active molecular orbital that is weakly coupled to the electrodes and closely aligned with the Fermi energy of the leads because of the spin-polarized ground state unique to the Mo centre. This situation provides an additional slow and incoherent hopping channel for transport, triggering a transient charging effect in the entire molecule with a strong hysteresis and large high-to-low current ratios.

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Figure 1: Organometallic single-molecule junctions bearing Ru, Fe and Mo metal centres to provide charge and spin degrees of freedom.
Figure 2: High-to-low current ratios for type I and type II curves.
Figure 3: Two-channel transport mechanism in single-molecule junctions and its influence on current switching and hysteresis.
Figure 4: DFT-derived transmission and molecular orbitals as well as transport characteristics calculated under finite bias.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to M. Koch for support with the synthesis of the end groups and to O. Blacque for single-crystal X-ray diffraction. We also acknowledge G. Puebla-Hellmann, V. Schmidt, and F. Evers for scientific discussions, and M. Tschudy, U. Drechsler and Ch. Rettner for technical assistance. We thank W. Riess and B. Michel for continuous support. Funding from the National Research Program “Smart Materials” (NRP 62, grant 406240-126142) of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the University of Zürich is gratefully acknowledged. G.K. and R.S. are currently supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, project Nos. P22548 and P27272, and are deeply indebted to the Vienna Scientific Cluster VSC, on whose computing facilities all DFT calculations were performed (project No. 70174). In addition, G.K. receives a grant co-sponsored by the Austrian Academy of Science ÖAW, Springer and the Austrian Chemical Society GÖCH.

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Author notes

  1. Florian Schwarz and Georg Kastlunger: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IBM Research - Zurich, Säumerstrasse 4, Rüschlikon, 8803, Switzerland

    Florian Schwarz & Emanuel Lörtscher

  2. Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Vienna, Sensengasse 8/7, Vienna, 1090, Austria

    Georg Kastlunger & Robert Stadler

  3. Institute for Theoretical Physics, TU Wien - Vienna University of Technology, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10, Vienna, 1040, Austria

    Georg Kastlunger & Robert Stadler

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zürich, 8057, Switzerland

    Franziska Lissel, Carolina Egler-Lucas, Sergey N. Semenov, Koushik Venkatesan & Heinz Berke

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Contributions

F.L., C.E.-L., S.N.S., K.V., and H.B. designed and synthesized the compounds. F.S., and E.L. set up and performed the experiments and the data analysis. G.K. and R.S. carried out the calculations. F.S., G.K., K.V., H.B., R.S. and E.L. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Emanuel Lörtscher.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Schwarz, F., Kastlunger, G., Lissel, F. et al. Field-induced conductance switching by charge-state alternation in organometallic single-molecule junctions. Nature Nanotech 11, 170–176 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.255

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