Nature of well-defined conductance of amine anchored molecular junctions

TL;DR

This study explains why amine-anchored molecular junctions show consistent conductance, highlighting their unique adsorption geometry and stability during stretching, unlike thiolate-anchored junctions.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed DFT-based analysis of the adsorption geometries and conductance behavior of amine versus thiolate anchored molecular junctions.

Findings

Amine groups adsorb only on apex Au atoms with a single geometry.

Thiolate groups can adopt multiple adsorption geometries with distinct conductance.

Amine-anchored junctions maintain electrode integrity during stretching.

Abstract

Amine terminated molecules show well behaved conductance in the scanning tunneling microscope break-junction experimental measurements. We performed density functional theory based electron transport calculations to explain the nature of this phenomenon. We find that amines can be adsorbed only on apex Au atom, while thiolate group can be attached equally well to undercoordinated and clean Au surfaces. Our calculations show that only one adsorption geo metry is sterically and energetically possible for amine anchored junction whereas three different adsorption geometries with very distinct transport pro perties are almost equally probable for thiolate anchored junction. We calculated the conductance as a function of the junction stretching when the molecules are pulled by the scanning tunneling microscope tip from the Au electrode. Our calculations show that the stretching of the thiolate anchored junction during its formation is accompanied by significant electrode geometry distortio n. The amine anchored junctions exhibit very different behavior -- the electrode remains intact when the scan ning tunneling microscope tip stretches the junction.