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Robust graphene-based molecular devices

Nature Nanotechnology volume 14, pages 957–961 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

One of the main challenges to upscale the fabrication of molecular devices is to achieve a mechanically stable device with reproducible and controllable electronic features that operates at room temperature1,2. This is crucial because structural and electronic fluctuations can lead to significant changes in the transport characteristics at the electrode–molecule interface3,4. In this study, we report on the realization of a mechanically and electronically robust graphene-based molecular junction. Robustness was achieved by separating the requirements for mechanical and electronic stability at the molecular level. Mechanical stability was obtained by anchoring molecules directly to the substrate, rather than to graphene electrodes, using a silanization reaction. Electronic stability was achieved by adjusting the π–π orbitals overlap of the conjugated head groups between neighbouring molecules. The molecular devices exhibited stable current–voltage (I–V) characteristics up to bias voltages of 2.0 V with reproducible transport features in the temperature range from 20 to 300 K.

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Fig. 1: Junction geometry, molecular design and electrical characterization.
Fig. 2: Electrical characterization of devices A (left), B (middle) and C (right) at 20 K exposed to the molecule BPC.
Fig. 3: Transport measurements through a BPC molecular junction (device A) at different temperatures.
Fig. 4: Transport through graphene–molecule–graphene junctions that containing the M and BPC molecule.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Measurements and analysis were performed in Origin and Matlab. All codes are available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Schönenberger for fruitful discussions. This work was partially supported by the European Commission FP7-ITN Molecular-scale Electronics: Concepts, Contacts and Stability (MOLESCO) grant (no. 606728) and the FET open project QuIET (no. 767187). This work was supported by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Grant EP/M014452/1 and EP/N017188/1 and the European Research Council Advanced Grant (Mols@Mols). H.S. acknowledges the UK Research and Innovation for Future Leaders Fellowship no. MR/S015329/1 and the Leverhulme Trust for Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship no. ECF-2017-186. S.S. acknowledges the Leverhulme Trust for Early Career Fellowship no. ECF-2018-375. M.L.P. acknowledges the funding by the EMPAPOSTDOCS-II programme, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska–Curie Grant Agreement no. 754364. O.B. acknowledges technical support from the Binning and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center (BRNC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Transport at Nanoscale Interfaces Laboratory, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Maria El Abbassi, Mickael Lucien Perrin, Oliver Braun & Michel Calame

  2. Department of Physics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Maria El Abbassi, Oliver Braun & Michel Calame

  3. Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Maria El Abbassi & Herre Sjoerd Jan van der Zant

  4. Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Sara Sangtarash, Colin Lambert & Hatef Sadeghi

  5. School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Sara Sangtarash & Hatef Sadeghi

  6. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Xunshan Liu, Silvio Decurtins & Shi-Xia Liu

  7. Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Shlomo Yitzchaik

  8. Swiss Nanoscience Institute, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Michel Calame

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  1. Maria El Abbassi
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Contributions

M.E.A. conducted the measurements and performed the data analysis. O.B. and M.E.A. fabricated the devices. X.L, S.-X.L., S.D. and S.Y. provided the molecules. S.S. and H.S. provided the theory and performed the DFT calculations. M.E.A., M.L.P., H.S., H.S.J.vdZ., C.L. and M.C. designed and supervised the study. M.E.A., M.L.P., S.S. and H.S. wrote the paper. M.E.A., M.L.P., S.S., H.S. and M.C. participated in the discussion of the data. All the authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shi-Xia Liu, Hatef Sadeghi or Michel Calame.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Nanotechnology thanks Dirk Mayer and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–9 and refs. 1–3.

Supplementary Movie 1

MD movie molecule C.

Supplementary Movie 2

MD movie molecule BPC.

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El Abbassi, M., Sangtarash, S., Liu, X. et al. Robust graphene-based molecular devices. Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 957–961 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0533-8

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