Investigating Molecular Junctions Based on Mixed Self-Assembled Monolayers to Understand the Impact of Intermolecular Interactions on Transport

To interrogate the importance of intermolecular interactions on charge transport at the nanoscale, we investigate molecular tunnel junctions based on mixed self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of 1-alkyl (CnT) thiols and their fluorinated counterparts (F-CnT) that have substantially different tunneling conductances. Experiments on mixed CnT(1-x):F-CnT(x) SAMs between Au contacts reveal a strongly nonlinear (exponential) dependence of the tunneling conductance G on composition x, a behavior that …