Electronic Transport through Organic Monolayer Devices

We report experimental studies of electronic transport through molecular monolayers. Particular emphasis is placed on combining detailed chemical, physical and electronic characterization in a single test structure, and to whatever degree possible, fabricating well-defined interfaces that enable quantitative chemical and physical analysis. To this end, we describe physical characterization of ultra-flat template-stripped Au and Pt metal electrodes including UHV-STM imaging and incorporation into a new stencil-based nanopore structure. In-situ XPS and IR spectroscopy are used to characterize the organic monolayers and the buried inorganic/organic interfaces. Using this well-characterized device structure, we present detailed I-V characterization including temperature dependence and IETS spectroscopy of several alkane self-assembled and Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers, correlating both electrical switching behavior and IETS spectral responses to the measured chemical and physical structure of the device.