Issue 16, 2019

Electrically transmissive alkyne-anchored monolayers on gold

Abstract

Well-ordered, tightly-packed (surface coverage 0.97 × 10−9 mol cm−2) monolayer films of 1,4-bis((4-ethynylphenyl)ethynyl)benzene (1) on gold are prepared via a simple self-assembly process, taking advantage of the ready formation of alkynyl C–Au σ-bonds. Electrochemical measurements using [Ru(NH3)6]3+, [Fe(CN)6]3−, and ferrocenylmethanol [Fe(η5-C5H4CH2OH)(η5-C5H5)] redox probes indicate that the alkynyl C–Au contacted monolayer of 1 presents a relatively low barrier for electron transfer. This contrasts with monolayer films on gold of other oligo(phenylene ethynylene) derivatives of comparable length and surface coverage, but with different contacting groups. Additionally, a low voltage transition (Vtrans = 0.51 V) from direct tunneling (rectangular barrier) to field emission (triangular barrier) is observed. This low transition voltage points to a low tunneling barrier, which is consistent with the facile electron transport observed through the C–Au contacted self-assembled monolayer of 1.

Graphical abstract: Electrically transmissive alkyne-anchored monolayers on gold

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 Dec 2018
Accepted
27 Mar 2019
First published
28 Mar 2019

Nanoscale, 2019,11, 7976-7985

Electrically transmissive alkyne-anchored monolayers on gold

L. Herrer, A. González-Orive, S. Marqués-González, S. Martín, R. J. Nichols, J. L. Serrano, P. J. Low and P. Cea, Nanoscale, 2019, 11, 7976 DOI: 10.1039/C8NR10464F

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