Electronic transport calculations for self-assembled mono-layers of 1,4-phenylene diisocyanide on Au(111) contacts

TL;DR

This study uses electronic transport calculations to analyze conductance features in self-assembled monolayers of 1,4-phenylene diisocyanide on Au(111), revealing how molecular end-groups influence conductance peaks.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-empirical extended Hückel approach to explain experimental conductance structures and identifies perturbations caused by additional molecules affecting periodicity.

Findings

Additional conductance peaks are due to perturbations from extra molecules.

Weaker coupling of cyanide end-groups to gold influences conductance features.

Theoretical results match experimental data only when perturbations are considered.

Abstract

We report on electronic transport calculations for self-assembled mono-layers (SAM) of 1,4-phenylene diisocyanide on Au(111) contacts. Experimentally one observes more structure (i.e peaks) within the measured conductance curve for this molecule with two cyanide end-groups, compared to measurements with molecules having thiol end-groups. The calculations are performed on the semi-empiric extended H\"{u}ckel level using elastic scattering quantum chemistry (ESQC) and we investigate three possible explanations for the experimental findings. Comparing the experimental and theoretical data, we are able to rule out all but one of the scenarios. The observed additional peaks are found to be only reproduced by a mono-layer with additional molecules perturbing the periodicity. It is conjectured that the weaker coupling to Au of cyanide end-groups compared to thiol end-groups might be responsible for such perturbations.