2021/02/19 by Sara Sangtarash, Sangtarash, Sara
Engineering · Materials Science · #Carbon Nanotubes in Composites #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2102.09936
openalex publication_date 2021/02/19 · openalex created_date 2021/03/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Designing molecular nanowires with high electrical conductance that facilitate efficient charge transport over long distances is highly desirable for future molecular-scale circuitry. However, most molecular wires act as tunnel barriers, and their electrical conductance decays exponentially with increasing length. Only recently have a few studies shown increasing conductance with length. In this study, we identify a new class of molecular wires that exhibit both an increase and a decrease in room-temperature conductance with length (a dual attenuation factor), depending on their connection points to the electrodes. We show that this dual attenuation factor is an inherent property of these graphene-like nanowires, and its demonstration depends on the constructive quantum interference pattern for different connectivities to the electrodes. This is significant because a given nanographene molecular wire can show both negative and positive attenuation factors. This enables the systematic design of connectivity-dependent high/low-conductance molecular wires for future molecular-scale circuitry.