Switching of Charge Transport Pathways via Delocalization Changes in Single-Molecule Metallacycles Junctions

• DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b06400
• Publication Date: 2017-09-05T20:43:37Z
• Authors: Ruihao Li; Zhengyu Lu; Yuanting Cai; Feng Jiang; Chun Tang; Zhixin Chen; Jueting Zheng; Jiuchan Pi; Rui Zhang; Junyang Liu; Zhao-Bin Chen; Yang Yang; Jia Shi; Wenjing Hong; Haiping Xia
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 0104 chemical sciences

To explore the charge transport through metalla-aromatics building blocks, three metallacycles complexes were synthesized, and their single-molecule conductances were characterized by using mechanically controllable break junction technique. It is found that the conductance of the metallacycles junction with phosphonium group is more than 1 order of magnitude higher than that without phosphonium group. X-ray diffraction and UV-vis absorption spectroscopy suggested that the attached phosphonium group makes metallacycles more delocalized, which shortened the preferred charge transport pathway and significantly enhanced the single-molecule conductance. This work revealed that the delocalization of metalla-aromatics could be used to switch the charge transport pathway of single-molecule junctions and thus tune the charge transport abilities significantly.