Oxygen-silver junction formation for single molecule conductance

Abstract

We use a scanning tunneling microscope based break-junction technique to measure the conductance of a 4,4'- dimethoxybiphenyl molecular junction formed with Ag and Au electrodes. We observe the formation of a clear molecular junction with Ag electrodes that result from stable Ag-oxygen bonding structures. However we have no molecular bonding formation when using Au electrodes, resulting in a tunneling current between the top and bottom metal electrodes. We also see a clear peak in the conductance histogram of the Ag-oxygen molecular junctions, but no significant molecular features are seen with Au electrodes. Our work should open a new path to the conductance measurements of single-molecule junctions with oxygen linkers.