Ru2(ap)4(sigma-oligo(phenyleneethynyl)) molecular wires: synthesis and electronic characterization

Amy Szuchmacher Blum; Tong Ren; Damon A Parish; Scott A Trammell; M H Moore; James G Kushmerick; Guo-Lin Xu; Jeffrey R Deschamps; Steven K Pollack; Ranganathan Shashidhar

doi:10.1021/ja052604e

Ru2(ap)4(sigma-oligo(phenyleneethynyl)) molecular wires: synthesis and electronic characterization

J Am Chem Soc. 2005 Jul 20;127(28):10010-1. doi: 10.1021/ja052604e.

Authors

Amy Szuchmacher Blum¹, Tong Ren, Damon A Parish, Scott A Trammell, M H Moore, James G Kushmerick, Guo-Lin Xu, Jeffrey R Deschamps, Steven K Pollack, Ranganathan Shashidhar

Affiliation

¹ Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375, USA. amyblum@cbmse.nrl.navy.mil

PMID: 16011359
DOI: 10.1021/ja052604e

Abstract

Reported in this contribution are the synthesis, characterization, and charge transport properties of wire-like Ru2(ap)4(OPEn), where ap is 2-anilinopyridinate and OPE is -(CCC6H4)nSCH2CH2SiMe3 with n = 1 (1) and 2 (2). Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements of compound 2 inserted into a SAM of C11 thiol reveal that molecule 2 exhibits (i) the stochastic switching characteristic of wire molecules embedded in insulating SAMs and (ii) higher conductivity than the C11 thiol SAM. More importantly, analysis of the molecular electronic decay constant (beta) exhibits a decrease of at least 15% as compared to purely organic molecular analogues. Hence, the transport characteristics of molecules can be significantly improved for nanoscale electronics through the incorporation of a Ru2 fragment into conjugated backbone.