Light-controlled conductance switching of ordered metal-molecule-metal devices.

van der Molen, Sense Jan; Liao, Jianhui; Kudernac, Tibor; Agustsson, Jon S; Bernard, Laetitia; Calame, Michel; van Wees, Bart J; Feringa, Ben L et al. · Nano Lett · 2009

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We demonstrate reversible, light-controlled conductance switching of molecular devices based on photochromic diarylethene molecules. These devices consist of ordered, two-dimensional lattices of gold nanoparticles, in which neighboring particles are bridged by switchable molecules. We independently confirm that reversible isomerization of the diarylethenes employed is at the heart of the room-temperature conductance switching. For this, we take full advantage of the possibility to use optical spectroscopy to follow molecular switching in these samples.

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