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Single-Molecule Conductance Behavior of Molecular Bundles

Bara-Estaún, Alejandro; Planje, Inco J.; Almughathawi, Renad; Naghibi, Saman; Vezzoli, Andrea; Milan, David C.; Lambert, Colin; Martin, Santiago; Cea, Pilar; Nichols, Richard J.; Higgins, Simon J.; Yufit, Dmitry S.; Sangtarash, Sara; Davidson, Ross J.; Beeby, Andrew

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Authors

Alejandro Bara-Estaún

Inco J. Planje

Renad Almughathawi

Saman Naghibi

Andrea Vezzoli

David C. Milan

Colin Lambert

Santiago Martin

Pilar Cea

Richard J. Nichols

Simon J. Higgins

Sara Sangtarash

Ross J. Davidson



Abstract

Controlling the orientation of complex molecules in molecular junctions is crucial to their development into functional devices. To date, this has been achieved through the use of multipodal compounds (i.e., containing more than two anchoring groups), resulting in the formation of tri/tetrapodal compounds. While such compounds have greatly improved orientation control, this comes at the cost of lower surface coverage. In this study, we examine an alternative approach for generating multimodal compounds by binding multiple independent molecular wires together through metal coordination to form a molecular bundle. This was achieved by coordinating iron(II) and cobalt(II) to 5,5′-bis(methylthio)-2,2′-bipyridine (L1) and (methylenebis(4,1-phenylene))bis(1-(5-(methylthio)pyridin-2-yl)methanimine) (L2) to give two monometallic complexes, Fe-1 and Co-1, and two bimetallic helicates, Fe-2 and Co-2. Using XPS, all of the complexes were shown to bind to a gold surface in a fac fashion through three thiomethyl groups. Using single-molecule conductance and DFT calculations, each of the ligands was shown to conduct as an independent wire with no impact from the rest of the complex. These results suggest that this is a useful approach for controlling the geometry of junction formation without altering the conductance behavior of the individual molecular wires.

Citation

Bara-Estaún, A., Planje, I. J., Almughathawi, R., Naghibi, S., Vezzoli, A., Milan, D. C., …Beeby, A. (2023). Single-Molecule Conductance Behavior of Molecular Bundles. Inorganic Chemistry, 62(51), 20940-20947. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.3c01943

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 27, 2023
Online Publication Date Dec 11, 2023
Publication Date Dec 25, 2023
Deposit Date Jan 17, 2024
Publicly Available Date Jan 17, 2024
Journal Inorganic Chemistry
Print ISSN 0020-1669
Electronic ISSN 1520-510X
Publisher American Chemical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 62
Issue 51
Pages 20940-20947
DOI https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.3c01943
Keywords Inorganic Chemistry; Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2149389

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