Electronic properties of individual diarylethene molecules studied using scanning tunneling spectroscopy

摘要

The investigation of the electronic conduction through monosulfurdiarylethene (1S-DE) immobilized in an insulating dodecanethiol matrix on a gold surface was addressed. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy allows to probe spatially the frontier molecular orbitals of 1S-DE at 77 K. We locally extracted the electronic highest occupied molecular orbital-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital gap of 1S-DE with the value of 1.56 eV. This attempt reveals the importance of scanning tunneling spectroscopy as a tool to measure the charge transport properties of diarylethene towards the realization of a switching-based molecular device.