Long-lived charged states of single porphyrin-tape junctions under ambient conditions

The ability to control the charge state of individual molecules wired in two-terminal single-molecule junctions is a key challenge in molecular electronics, particularly in relation to the development of molecular memory and other computational componentry. Here we demonstrate that single porphyrin molecular junctions can be reversibly charged and discharged at elevated biases under ambient conditions due to the presence of a localised molecular eigenstate close to the Fermi edge of the electrodes. In particular, we can observe long-lived charge-states with lifetimes upwards of 1-10 seconds after returning to low bias and large changes in conductance, in excess of 100-fold at low bias. Our theoretical analysis finds charge-state lifetimes within the same time range as the experiments. The ambient operation demonstrates that special conditions such as low temperatures or ultra-high vacuum are not essential to observe hysteresis and stable charged molecular junctions.

Cross-conjugation increases the conductance of meta-connected fluorenones

Charge transport is strongly suppressed by destructive quantum interference (DQI) in meta-connected 1,1'-biphenyl-containing molecules, resulting in low electrical conductance. Surprisingly, we have found that DQI is almost entirely overcome by adding a bridging carbonyl, to yield a cross-conjugated fluorenone. This contrasts with other π-systems, such as para-connected anthraquinone, where cross-conjugation results in low conductance.

Single-molecule conductance of a chemically modified, π-extended tetrathiafulvalene and its charge-transfer complex with F4TCNQ

We describe the synthesis and single-molecule electrical transport properties of a molecular wire containing a π-extended tetrathiafulvalene (exTTF) group and its charge-transfer complex with F4TCNQ. We form single-molecule junctions using the in situ break junction technique using a homebuilt scanning tunneling microscope with a range of conductance between 10 G0 down to 10(-7) G0. Within this range we do not observe a clear conductance signature of the neutral parent molecule, suggesting either that its conductance is too low or that it does not form a stable junction. Conversely, we do find a clear conductance signature in the experiments carried out on the charge-transfer complex. Due to the fact we expected this species to have a higher conductance than the neutral molecule, we believe this supports the idea that the conductance of the neutral molecule is very low, below our measurement sensitivity. This idea is further supported by theoretical calculations. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first reported single-molecule conductance measurements on a molecular charge-transfer species.