Final Report Summary - SAM-TUNEGAIN (Self Assembled Monolayer Tunnel Junctions Engineering with Eutectic Gallium Indium Tips)
The outgoing phase of this project involves multiple aspects that range from molecular modelling (M1) to identifying promising compounds that are then synthesized (M2) and whose physical properties are ultimately established via formation of self-assembled monolayers and measurement of the transport properties of their tunnel junctions (M3). This design loop is then iterated to gain control and knowledge over the physical properties of the systems used in this study.
During the outgoing phase we have thus developed a methodology to simulate accurately the tunneling barrier heights for a wide variety of organic molecules and applied this methodology to rationalizing the experimental results obtained by the lab and to predict the behavior of some molecular rectifiers that were then synthesized and probed experimentally. This methodology was adapted to the accurate prediction of current densities across SAMs of various non-rectifying junctions, and to rationalize the behavior of some systems that behaved unexpectedly.
An additional benefit from the outgoing phase was the involvement of the fellow to a wide variety of projects ranging from non-conventional nanofabrication of plasmonic materials to the biochemistry of low-cost immunoassays.
Upon reintegration in the European Research Area, the fellow has applied the know-how acquired in the Whiteside´s lab (on molecular junctions, nanofabrications and plasmonics) to study surface supported molecular magnetic materials. This is complementing the knowledge present in the return host and allows the fellow to develop his own lines of research at the crossroads of molecular magnetism and molecular electronics. In particular, in the recent months we have developped an EGaIn platform in Bordeaux that now allows to perform measurements of charge transport across monolayers or thin films of molecular materials. We are currently using it to study bistable magnetic molecules and to characterize and drive the properties of ferroelectric thin films.