Tuning The Binding Configurations Of Single-molecule Junctions By ...

Tuning the binding configurations of single-molecule junctions by molecular co-assembly†

Ling Tong,‡a Shu-Yi Bao,‡a Chen-Chen Jiang,a Xiao-Chong Li,a Jia-Jie Li,a Xu-Nan Huang-Fu,a Ju-Fang Zheng,a Yong Shao, a Ya-Hao Wang, *a Yi-Jing Gao*ab and Xiao-Shun Zhou *a Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

a Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

b Zhejiang Engineering Laboratory for Green Syntheses and Applications of Fluorine-Containing Specialty Chemicals, Institute of Advanced Fluorine-Containing Materials, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China

Abstract

Significant variability issues in metal-molecule contacts, such as adsorption geometry, lead to characteristic variability in the electrical responses of individual molecules. Herein, co-assembling 1-ethylimidazole (EIM) on Au(111) has been shown to be a feasible and effective strategy for tuning the binding configurations of pyridine-linked molecular junctions in the most common aqueous environments and atmospheric environments. The single-molecule conductance measurements clearly show a transition from multiple conductance peaks to a single conductance peak with increasing EIM concentration. Raman spectroscopy and DFT calculations suggest that the thermodynamically favorable EIM adsorbate results in the vertical orientation of the bipyridine.

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