Modulation of Electrical Conduction Through Individual Molecules on Silicon by the Electrostatic Fields of Nearby Polar Molecules: Theory and Experiment

TL;DR

This study combines experimental and theoretical approaches to demonstrate how polar molecules on silicon can modulate electrical conduction through electrostatic interactions, enabling tunable molecular-scale electronic properties.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how molecular dipoles influence charge transport on silicon, combining STM experiments with ab initio modeling to control conduction at the nanoscale.

Findings

Electrostatic fields from polar molecules significantly affect nearby conduction.

OCH3 groups enhance conduction near heterojunctions under negative bias.

CF3 groups suppress substrate transport and influence conduction localization.

Abstract

We report on the synthesis, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and theoretical modeling of the electrostatic and transport properties of one-dimensional organic heterostructures consisting of contiguous lines of CF3- and OCH3-substituted styrene molecules on silicon. The electrostatic fields emanating from these polar molecules are found, under appropriate conditions, to strongly influence electrical conduction through nearby molecules and the underlying substrate. For suitable alignment of the OCH3 groups of the OCH3-styrene molecules in the molecular chain, their combined electric fields are shown by ab initio density functional calculations to give rise to potential profiles along the OCH3-styrene chain that result in strongly enhanced conduction through OCH3-styrene molecules near the heterojunction for moderately low negative substrate bias, as is observed experimentally. Under similar bias conditions, dipoles associated with the CF3 groups are found in both experiment and in theory to depress transport in the underlying silicon. Under positive substrate bias, simulations suggest that the differing structural and electrostatic properties of the CF3-styrene molecules may lead to a more sharply localized conduction enhancement near the heterojunction at low temperatures. Thus choice of substituents, their attachment site on the host styrene molecules on silicon and the orientations of the molecular dipole and higher multipole moments provide a means of differentially tuning transport on the molecular scale.