Abstract

Double-ended aryl dithiols [α,α′-xylyldithiol (XYL) and 4,4′-biphenyldithiol] formed self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold(111) substrates and were used to tether nanometer-sized gold clusters deposited from a cluster beam. An ultrahigh-vacuum scanning tunneling microscope was used to image these nanostructures and to measure their current-voltage characteristics as a function of the separation between the probe tip and the metal cluster. At room temperature, when the tip was positioned over a cluster bonded to the XYL SAM, the current-voltage data showed "Coulomb staircase" behavior. These data are in good agreement with semiclassical predictions for correlated single-electron tunneling and permit estimation of the electrical resistance of a single XYL molecule (∼18 ± 12 megohms).

Keywords

Scanning tunneling microscopeNanostructureCluster (spacecraft)Coulomb blockadeQuantum tunnellingMonolayerGold clusterNanotechnologySemiclassical physicsChemistryCoulombSelf-assembled monolayerElectrochemical scanning tunneling microscopeSelf-assemblyMaterials scienceAnalytical Chemistry (journal)VoltageScanning tunneling spectroscopyOptoelectronicsElectronPhysicsElectronic structureTransistorComputational chemistryOrganic chemistry

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

Publication Info

Year
1996
Type
article
Volume
272
Issue
5266
Pages
1323-1325
Citations
1004
Access
Closed

External Links

Download PDF (Free) View on DOI.org PubMed Semantic Scholar

Social Impact

Altmetric
PlumX Metrics

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

1004
OpenAlex
7
Influential
925
CrossRef

Cite This

Ronald P. Andres, Thomas Bein, Matt Dorogi et al. (1996). Coulomb Staircase at Room Temperature in a Self-Assembled Molecular Nanostructure. Science , 272 (5266) , 1323-1325. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.272.5266.1323

Identifiers

DOI
10.1126/science.272.5266.1323
PMID
8662464

Data Quality

Data completeness: 77%