A New Photo-Control Method for Organic–Inorganic Interface Dipoles and Its Application to Photo-Controllable Molecular Devices

Abstract

Abstract The ability to manipulate the behavior of electrons at organic–inorganic interfaces is of crucial importance in the development of future molecular devices. It has been shown that interface dipoles, created by the chemisorption of a self-assembled organic monolayer (SAM) on a solid surface, induce carrier injection effects. This means that the interface electronic properties can be manipulated by designing the molecular dipoles and arrangements in the SAMs. In this study, a novel strategy to photo-control molecular dipoles through the use of photochromic SAMs is proposed, and a number of photo-controllable molecular devices have been developed based on this strategy. This account provides a review of the basic concept of the photo-control of interface dipoles and the recent advances in the development of photo-controllable molecular devices.