Measurement of voltage-dependent electronic transport across amine-linked single-molecular-wire junctions

We measure the conductance and current–voltage characteristics of two amine-terminated molecular wires— 4,4'-diaminostilbene and bis-(4-aminophenyl)acetylene—by breaking Au point contacts in a molecular solution at room temperature. Histograms compiled from thousands of measurements show a slight increase in the molecular junction conductance (I/V) as the bias is increased to nearly 450 mV. Comparatively, similar conductance measurements made with 1,6-diaminohexane, a saturated molecule, demonstrate almost no bias dependence. We also present a new technique to measure a statistically defined current–voltage (I–V) curve. Application to all three molecules shows that 4,4'-diaminostilbene exhibits the largest increase in differential conductance as a function of applied bias. This indicates that the predominant transport channel for 4,4'-diaminostilbene (the highest occupied molecular orbital) is closer to the Fermi level of the metal than that of the other molecules, consistent with the trends observed in the molecular ionization potential. We find that junctions constructed with the conjugated molecules show greater noise in individual junctions and less structural stability, on average, at biases greater than 450 mV. In contrast, junctions formed with the alkane can sustain a bias of up to 900 mV. This significantly affects the statistically averaged I–V characteristic measured for the conjugated molecules at higher bias.