Experimental Study of the Structure-Property Relationship of Molecular Junctions.

摘要

In this work we have developed novel experimental platforms to understand the structure property relationship of molecular junctions. Specifically, we sought to investigate the feasibility of creation of organic- based thermoelectric energy conversion. Towards this goal, we first developed a picowatt-resolution calorimeter that is critical for characterizing thermal transport through molecular junctions (Sadat et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 2011). Subsequently, we developed a novel thermal imaging tool for probing temperature fields with nanoscale resolution (Kim et al., ACS Nano, 2012). Finally, we used the novel scanning thermal imaging techniques (Jeong et al., In Review, ACS Nano) to both understand Joule heating in nanoscale interconnects and to establish temperature differentials across nanoscale gaps. These three terminal devices were created to tune the electronic structure of molecular junctions while probing their thermoelectric properties. We have recently used these devices to tune thermoelectric effects in molecular junctions and preparing these interesting results for review and publication (To be submitted to Nature Nanotechnology).