Campus Units

Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Bioplastics and Biocomposites

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

2015

Journal or Book Title

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

Volume

6

Issue

24

First Page

4952

Last Page

4958

DOI

10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b02300

Abstract

Mechanistic understanding of charge transport through molecular tunnel junctions requires reproducible and statistically relevant data sets. This challenge has been overcome by development of large area junctions, especially those based on liquid-metal physi-sorbed top-electrodes, such as eutectic gallium–indium. A challenge with these junctions, however, is an inability to diagnose the quality of contact between the top-electrode and the SAMs. Since tunneling currents are dependent on the distance between the two electrodes, we demonstrate that by analyzing all raw unfitted data derived from a measurement using heat-maps, one can deduce the quality of contact and other minor bias-dependent fluctuations in the charge transport behavior. We demonstrate that the use of 3D plots would be challenging to interpret, but adoption of heat maps clearly captures details on junction quality irrespective of the total size of the data set or molecules used. We propose representation of raw data, rather than reliance on statistics, as proof of quality junctions.

Comments

Reprinted with permission from Sporrer, Jacob, Jiahao Chen, Zhengjia Wang, and Martin M. Thuo. "Revealing the Nature of Molecule–Electrode Contact in Tunneling Junctions Using Raw Data Heat Maps." The journal of physical chemistry letters 6, no. 24 (2015): 4952-4958, doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b02300. Copyright 2015 American Chemical Society.

Copyright Owner

American Chemical Society

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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