Biased Switching
Science · 2004
The conductivity of highly conjugated oligo(phenylene-ethynylene) (OPE) molecules has been explored in a number of settings. When these molecules are thiol-derivatized and surrounded with alkanethiol molecules on gold films, random switching in their conductance from a high “on” state to a low “off” state has been observed by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and the switching has been attributed to hybridization changes in the OPE-surface bond.