Carbon tips as electrodes for single-molecule junctions

Andres Castellanos-Gomez, Stefan Bilan, Linda A. Zotti, Carlos R. Arroyo, Nicolas Agrait, Juan Carlos Cuevas, Gabino Rubio-Bollinger

Published 2011-09-09, updated 2011-11-03Version 2

We study electron transport through single-molecule junctions formed by an octanethiol molecule bonded with the thiol anchoring group to a gold electrode and the opposing methyl endgroup to a carbon tip. Using the scanning tunneling microscope based break junction technique, we measure the electrical conductance of such molecular junctions. We observe the presence of well-defined conductance plateaus during the stretching of the molecular bridge, which is the signature of the formation of a molecular junction.