Abstrakt
Achieving highly transmitting molecular junctions through resonant transport at low bias is key to the next-generation low-power molecular devices. Although resonant transport in molecular junctions was observed by connecting a molecule between the metal electrodes via chemical anchors by applying a high source-drain bias (>1 V), the conductance was limited to G(0), G(0) being the quantum of conductance.
Herein, we report electronic transport measurements by directly connecting a ferrocene molecule between Au electrodes under ambient conditions in a mechanically controllable break junction setup (MCBJ), revealing a conductance peak at & SIM;0.2G(0) in the conductance histogram. A similar experiment was repeated for ferrocene terminated with amine (-NH2) and cyano (-CN) anchors, where conductance histograms exhibit an extended low conductance feature, including the sharp high conductance peak, similar to pristine ferrocene.
The statistical analysis of the data and density functional theory-based transport calculation suggest a possible molecular conformation with a strong hybridization between the Au electrodes, and that the Fe atom of ferrocene is responsible for a near-perfect transmission in the vicinity of the Fermi energy, leading to the resonant transport at a small applied bias (<0.5 V). Moreover, calculations including van der Waals/dispersion corrections reveal a covalent-like organometallic bonding between Au and the central Fe atom of ferrocene, having bond energies of & SIM;660 meV.
Overall, our study not only demonstrates the realization of an air-stable highly transmitting molecular junction, but also provides important insights about the nature of chemical bonding at the metal/organo-metallic interface.