Final Report Summary - SIMONE (Single Molecule Nano Electronics (SIMONE))
The ERC research project on Single Molecule Nano Electronics (SIMONE) was carried out at Chalmers University of Technology from 2013-2019. The project focused on the development of self-assembly methods for positioning and electronic contact to nanoscale objects such as single molecule and nanoparticles. The project lead to several interesting research discoveries, including (i) methods to study catalyst reaction on single nanoparticles while they are operating. (ii) Methods to position and contact single molecules and recently (iii) a single molecule component with memristive function. For the single nanoparticle catalysis studies (i), two nanoparticles, one catalytic from palladium and one plasmonic from gold were connected in a way so that the gold nanoparticle reported optically about what was happening at the palladium particle. In the single molecule electronics devices (ii), a proto-device consisting of a single molecule contacted to two gold nanoparticles were first assembled in solution. Later, the protodevice was assembled onto pre-fabricated nanostructures to allow for electronic testing of the single molecule electronics component. For the single molecule memristor (iii) a thiol end-capped norbornadiene-quadricyclane photoswitch was placed between two electrodes. Interestingly, in the device, the molecule could be switched between a high and a low conducting form using electronic stimuli only, thus demonstrating the basic function of a single molecule memristor.