Highly-effective gating of single-molecule junctions: an electrochemical approach

Chem Commun (Camb). 2014 Dec 28;50(100):15975-8. doi: 10.1039/c4cc06519k.

Abstract

We report an electrochemical gating approach with ∼100% efficiency to tune the conductance of single-molecule 4,4'-bipyridine junctions using scanning-tunnelling-microscopy break junction technique. Density functional theory calculation suggests that electrochemical gating aligns molecular frontier orbitals relative to the electrode Fermi-level, switching the molecule from an off resonance state to "partial" resonance.