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Advance of Mechanically Controllable Break Junction for Molecular Electronics

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Abstract

Molecular electronics stands for the ultimate size of functional elements, keeping up with an unstoppable trend over the past few decades. As a vital component of molecular electronics, single molecular junctions have attracted significant attention from research groups all over the world. Due to its pronounced superiority, the mechanically controllable break junctions (MCBJ) technique has been widely applied to characterize the dynamic performance of single molecular junctions. This review presents a system analysis for single-molecule junctions and offers an overview of four test-beds for single-molecule junctions, thus offering more insight into the mechanisms of electron transport. We mainly focus on the development of state-of-the-art mechanically controlled break junctions. The three-terminal gated MCBJ approaches are introduced to manipulate the electron transport of molecules, and MCBJs are combined with characterization techniques. Additionally, applications of MCBJs and remarkable properties of single molecules are addressed. Finally, the challenges and perspective for the mechanically controllable break junctions technique are provided.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21303171, 61571242), Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Commission (No. 14JCQNJC03000), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China.

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  1. Lu Wang and Ling Wang contributed equally to this paper.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Optical Information Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Optics, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Lu Wang, Ling Wang, Lei Zhang & Dong Xiang

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  1. Lu Wang
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  2. Ling Wang
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  3. Lei Zhang
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  4. Dong Xiang
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Correspondence to Dong Xiang.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection “Molecular-Scale Electronics: Current Status and Perspective”; edited by Xuefeng Guo.

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Wang, L., Wang, L., Zhang, L. et al. Advance of Mechanically Controllable Break Junction for Molecular Electronics. Top Curr Chem (Z) 375, 61 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41061-017-0149-0

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