Major Milestone in Molecular Electronics Scored by Berkeley
Lab and Columbia University Team
A team of researchers from Berkeley Lab and Columbia
University has passed a major milestone in molecular electronics with the
creation of the world’s highest-performance single-molecule diode. Working at
Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of
Science User Facility, the team used a combination of gold electrodes and an
ionic solution to create a single-molecule diode that outperforms the best of
its predecessors by a factor of 50.
“Using a single symmetric molecule, an ionic solution and
two gold electrodes of dramatically different exposed surface areas, we were
able to create a diode that resulted in a rectification ratio, the ratio of
forward to reverse current at fixed voltage, in excess of 200, which is a
record for single-molecule devices,” says Jeff Neaton, Director of the
Molecular Foundry, a senior faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials
Sciences Division and the Department of Physics at the University of California
Berkeley, and a member of the Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute at Berkeley
(Kavli ENSI).
“The asymmetry necessary for diode behavior originates with
the different exposed electrode areas and the ionic solution,” he says. “This
leads to different electrostatic environments surrounding the two electrodes
and superlative single-molecule device behavior.”