Exploring electron transport through organic monolayers using conductive tip AFM techniques

We follow an alternative approach to the study of Metal-molecule-Metal junctions that uses a combination of two atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques. We use Nanografting to build a nanopatch of the molecules of interest and a second made of a reference molecule into a hosting self assembled monolayer (SAM) typically made of alkanethiols. After the tip is changed to a conductive one CT-AFM is used to characterized the whole system recording, at the same time, the system topography. Some of the advantages of this approach are the possibility to build and study a wide range of different M-m-M junctions and the in-situ control of the quality of the monolayers and patches. Results will be presented on saturated and unsaturated thiols self-assembled and nanografted on Au(111) surfaces. The results will be compared with those obtained by Liang and Scoles at Princeton using similar techniques.