Unprecedented ON/OFF Ratios in Photoactive Diarylethene-Bisthienylbenzene Molecular Junctions.

Hnid, Imen; Liu, Mingyang; Frath, Denis; Bellynck, Sebastien; Lafolet, Frederic; Sun, Xiaonan; Lacroix, Jean-Christophe · Nano Lett · 2021

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Photoactive molecular junctions, based on 4 nm thick diarylethene (DAE) and 5 nm thick bisthienylbenzene (BTB) layers, were fabricated by electrochemical deposition. Total thickness was around 9 nm, that is, above the direct tunneling limit and in the hopping regime. The DAE units were switched between their open and closed forms. The DAE/BTB bilayer structure exhibits new electronic functions combining photoswitching and photorectification. The open form of DAE/BTB shows low conductance and asymmetric <i>I</i>-<i>V</i> curves while the closed form shows symmetric <i>I</i>-<i>V</i> curves and high conductance. More importantly, unprecedented ON/OFF current ratios of over 10 000 at 1 V were reproducibly measured.

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