Cooperative self-assembly of dimer junctions driven by π stacking leads to conductance enhancement

0574991 - FZÚ 2024 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Pan, X.-Y. - Montes Muñoz, Enrique - Rojas, Wudmir Yudi - Lawson, B. - Vázquez, Héctor - Kamenetska, M.
Cooperative self-assembly of dimer junctions driven by π stacking leads to conductance enhancement.
Nano Letters. Roč. 23, č. 15 (2023), s. 6937-6943. ISSN 1530-6984. E-ISSN 1530-6992
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT(CZ) EF16_019/0000760
Grant - others:OP VVV - SOLID21(XE) CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000760
Research Infrastructure: e-INFRA CZ - 90140
Institutional support: RVO:68378271
Keywords : electrical conductivity * pi stacking * in situ assembly * intermolecular interaction * benzimidazole * single molecule conductance * metal-organic interface
OECD category: Physical chemistry
Impact factor: 10.8, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01540

We demonstrate enhanced electronic transport through dimer molecular junctions, which self-assemble between two gold electrodes in pi-pi stabilized binding configurations. Single molecule junction conductance measurements show that benzimidazole molecules assemble into dimer junctions with a per-molecule conductance that is higher than that in monomer junctions. Density functional theory calculations reveal that parallel stacking of two benzimidazoles between electrodes is the most energetically favorable due to the large pi system. Imidazole is smaller and has greater conformational freedom to access different stacking angles. Transport calculations confirm that the conductance enhancement of benzimidazole dimers results from the changed binding geometry of dimers on gold, which is stabilized and made energetically accessible by intermolecular pi stacking.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0345629