Journal Club do Departamento de Física dos Materiais e Mecânica – FMT
Nesta semana a pós-graduanda Angele Aja-Fowe, do do Grupo Teórico de Materiais, apresentará o artigo: “Massively parallel fabrication of crack-defined gold break junctions featuring sub-3 nm gaps for molecular devices”, Valentin Dubois et al.
Dia: 10 de outubro, quarta-feira, às 12h10.
Local: Sala de Seminários José Roberto Leite Edifício Alessandro Volta (bloco C).
Abstract:
Break junctions provide tip-shaped contact electrodes that are fundamental components of nano and molecular electronics. However, the fabrication of break junctions remains notoriously time-consuming and difficult to parallelize. Here we demonstrate true parallel fabrication of gold break junctions featuring sub-3 nm gaps on the wafer-scale, by relying on a novel self-breaking mechanism based on controlled crack formation in notched bridge structures. We achieve fabrication densities as high as 7 million junctions per cm2, with fabrication yields of around 7% for obtaining crack-defined break junctions with sub-3 nm gaps of fixed gap width that exhibit electron tunneling. We also form molecular junctions using dithiol-terminated oligo(phenylene ethynylene) (OPE3) to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach for electrical probing of molecules down to liquid helium temperatures. Our technology opens a whole new range of experimental opportunities for nano and molecular electronics applications, by enabling very large-scale fabrication of solid-state break junctions. Published 24 August 2018 DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-05785-2
