Abstract
Molecular-scale electronics is mainly concerned by understanding charge transport through individual molecules. A key issue here is the charge transport capability through a single—typically linear—molecule, characterized by the current decay with increasing length. To improve the conductance of individual polymers, molecular design often either involves the use of rigid ribbon/ladder-type structures, thereby sacrificing for flexibility of the molecular wire, or a zero band gap, typically associated with chemical instability. Here we show that a conjugated polymer composed of alternating donor and acceptor repeat units, synthesized directly by an on-surface polymerization, exhibits a very high conductance while maintaining both its flexible structure and a finite band gap. Importantly, electronic delocalization along the wire does not seem to be necessary as proven by spatial mapping of the electronic states along individual molecular wires. Our approach should facilitate the realization of flexible ‘soft' molecular-scale circuitry, for example, on bendable substrates.
Highlights
Molecular-scale electronics is mainly concerned by understanding charge transport through individual molecules
Assuming the validity of the standard Kirchhoff circuit mesh law[20], the former allows to explore the conductance of a molecular junction made of an ensemble of molecules located within a two-electrode junction, for instance, using a mechanical break junction set-up, and the properties of a single molecule are obtained from a statistical analysis
We show that on-surface polymerization can be used to generate flexible molecular wires, composed of alternating donor and acceptor units, which despite the lack of electronic delocalization along the chain and a non-zero Eg exhibit a high conductance around the Fermi level in singlemolecule transport measurements
Summary
Molecular-scale electronics is mainly concerned by understanding charge transport through individual molecules. We show that on-surface polymerization can be used to generate flexible molecular wires, composed of alternating donor and acceptor units, which despite the lack of electronic delocalization along the chain and a non-zero Eg exhibit a high conductance around the Fermi level in singlemolecule transport measurements.
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