TY  - JOUR
AU  - Zhao, Zhikai
AU  - Liu, Ran
AU  - Mayer, Dirk
AU  - Coppola, Maristella
AU  - Sun, Lu
AU  - Kim, Youngsang
AU  - Wang, Chuankui
AU  - Ni, Lifa
AU  - Chen, Xing
AU  - Wang, Maoning
AU  - Li, Zongliang
AU  - Lee, Takhee
AU  - Xiang, Dong
TI  - Shaping the Atomic-Scale Geometries of Electrodes to Control Optical and Electrical Performance of Molecular Devices
JO  - Small
VL  - 14
IS  - 15
SN  - 1613-6810
CY  - Weinheim
PB  - Wiley-VCH
M1  - FZJ-2018-07426
SP  - 1703815 -
PY  - 2018
AB  - A straightforward method to generate both atomic‐scale sharp and atomic‐scale planar electrodes is reported. The atomic‐scale sharp electrodes are generated by precisely stretching a suspended nanowire, while the atomic‐scale planar electrodes are obtained via mechanically controllable interelectrodes compression followed by a thermal‐driven atom migration process. Notably, the gap size between the electrodes can be precisely controlled at subangstrom accuracy with this method. These two types of electrodes are subsequently employed to investigate the properties of single molecular junctions. It is found, for the first time, that the conductance of the amine‐linked molecular junctions can be enhanced ≈50% as the atomic‐scale sharp electrodes are used. However, the atomic‐scale planar electrodes show great advantages to enhance the sensitivity of Raman scattering upon the variation of nanogap size. The underlying mechanisms for these two interesting observations are clarified with the help of density functional theory calculation and finite‐element method simulation. These findings not only provide a strategy to control the electron transport through the molecule junction, but also pave a way to modulate the optical response as well as to improve the stability of single molecular devices via the rational design of electrodes geometries.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:29542239
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000430186600008
DO  - DOI:10.1002/smll.201703815
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/858556
ER  -