Negative differential resistance, rectification, tunable peak-current position and switching effects in an alanine-based molecular device

Abstract

The transport properties of a molecular bio-electronic device based on the alanine amino-acid are investigated. The considered device consists of an alanine molecule as the central potential-dot coupled to two zigzag graphene nanoribbon (ZGNR) conducting electrodes. The current–voltage characteristics of this dual tunnelling molecular junction are studied at two different optimised compositions of the central molecule. The proposed amino-acid based structure utilises the tunnelling coupling similar to that of semiconducting single-electron transistors (SETs) to avoid complications due to the atomic interfaces. The current–voltage characteristics show polarity-dependent behaviour making the device feasible of being applied as a molecular rectifier. Negative differential resistance (NDR) along with tuneable peak-current position has been also observed in the current–voltage characteristics. The device is also capable of being applied as a switch controllable by the central molecule orientation.