Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 23: Scanning probe methods II

O 23.7: Talk

Monday, March 14, 2011, 18:45–19:00, WIL C307

Measuring forces in a single-molecule transport junction — •Norman Fournier, Christian Wagner, Christian Weiss, Ruslan Temirov, and Stefan Tautz — Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA-Fundamentals of Future Information Technology

Understanding of the charge transport on a single-molecule level is vital for the future success of molecular electronics. At the present, however, this understanding is still hindered by the lack of data obtained under well-controlled experimental conditions. Recently we have shown that a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM) can be used to perform well-controlled and tunable single-molecule transport studies [1]. The high degree of structural control reached in our experiments allowed theoretical analysis of the junction on ab-initio level [2,3]. In this contribution we take further efforts towards even better experimental control over the molecular transport junction: contacting the molecule with the tip of the low-temperature AFM/STM, based on the q-Plus tuning fork design, we demonstrate that the forces acting in the junction can be measured simultaneously with the transport. The results of such measurements help us to gain further insights in the structure of a single-molecule junction and the process of the mechanical gating.

(1) R Temirov et al. Nanotechnology 2008, 19, 065401 (2) A. Greuling et al. submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. (3) C. Toher, et al. submitted to Phys. Rev. B