Control of topography, stress and diffusion at molecule-metal interface
14 March 2006
We introduce an approach that allows us to systematically experiment the growth conditions at interfaces during fabrication of nanoscale molecular devices. Transport properties of metal-molecule-metal junctions containing monolayer of conjugated and saturated molecules with characteristic dimensions in the range of 30- 300 nm are correlated with microscopic topography, stress and chemical bonding at metal-molecule interfaces. Our statistically significant dataset allows us to conclude that the conductivity of organic molecules ~1.5 nm long is at least 4 orders of magnitude lower than is commonly believed.