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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 74: Molecular Electronics and Photonics

TT 74.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 16:45–17:00, H 3005

Switching the conductance of molecular junctions by proton transfer — •Dominik Weckbecker¹, Pedro B. Coto¹, and Michael Thoss^{1, 2} — ¹FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Staudtstrasse 7/B2, 91058 Erlangen, Germany — ²Universität Freiburg, Physikalisches Institut, Hermann-Herder-Str. 3, 79104 Freiburg

While most experiments on single-molecule junctions have employed metal electrodes, recent works demonstrate that graphene has a number of advantages over metallic leads [1-2]. In this contribution, we investigate charge transport in graphene-molecule junctions employing a theoretical approach that combines first-principles electronic structure methods with nonequilibrium Green’s function transport theory [3]. Specifically, we consider zigzag and armchair terminated graphene leads with covalently bonded molecular bridges. We analyze the possibility to use a proton transfer reaction as novel mechanism for switching the conductance of a molecular junction. Our simulations demonstrate that an intramolecular proton transfer can change the conductance of the graphene-molecule junction significantly [4]. While a proton transfer parallel to the transport direction could be used to realize a molecular switch or diode, a junction with a perpendicular proton transfer can resemble a transistor.
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