Exploring Conductance Switching in Single Electroactive Molecules.

Redox active molecules represent suitable functional elements (conductors, switches and diodes) for molecular electronics. Submitted proposal suggests single molecule conductance studies of electroactive compounds capable of switching between two redox states or demonstrating electrochemically-driven reversible bond formation and rupture. Conductance switching principle can be used for digital information storage. Project includes systematic study of the relationship between charge transfer kinetics in electrochemically-defined system and charge transport characteristics at the single molecule level with the aim to confront currently proposed theoretical descriptions. Single molecule conductance will be obtained by break junction techniques and charge transfer rate constants by a high-speed voltammetry in combination with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Experimental results will be complemented by theoretical calculations of the single molecule conductance using nonequilibrium Green’s function formalism and of the charge transfer rate constants using Marcus theory.