Atomically defined angstrom-scale all-carbon junctions.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30988310.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-09793-8 and PMC identifier 6465289.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Full-carbon electronics at the scale of several angstroms is an expeimental challenge, which could be overcome by exploiting the versatility of carbon allotropes. Here, we investigate charge transport through graphene/single-fullerene/graphene hybrid junctions using a single-molecule manipulation technique. Such sub-nanoscale electronic junctions can be tuned by band gap engineering as exemplified by various pristine fullerenes such as C<sub>60</sub>, C<sub>70</sub>, C<sub>76</sub> and C<sub>90</sub>. In addition, we demonstrate further control of charge transport by breaking the conjugation of their π systems which lowers their conductance, and via heteroatom doping of fullerene, which introduces transport resonances and increase their conductance. Supported by our combined density functional theory (DFT) calculations, a promising future of tunable full-carbon electronics based on numerous sub-nanoscale fullerenes in the large family of carbon allotropes is anticipated.