NanoInnovationLAB Highlights


Electrical and transport properties in organic assembies

 

CT-AFM is commonly used for electrical characterization of organic and inorganic surface systems. Understanding electron transfer at the molecular level may lead to the development of molecular assemblies with unique properties and is of great importance for the advancement of both organic, molecular and bio-electronics. In our lab we follow an approach to the study of Metal-Molecule-Metal surface junctions that uses a combination of different AFM-based techniques. We first use Nanografting to build nanopatches of the molecules of interest into a hosting reference self assembled monolayer (SAM) typically made of alkanethiols. After the tip is changed to a conductive one, CT-AFM is used to characterize electrically the whole system recording, at the same time, the system topography. Some of the advantages of this approach are the possibility to build and study a wide range of different monolayers side-by-side on the same sample and the in-situ control of the quality both of the hosting monolayer and that of the grafted patches.  This peculiarity allows us to directly compare the current values of the alkanethiol chains.


 

 




Study of charge transport and charge polarization phenomena in molecular assemblies for the development of organic and bio-electronic devices. Furthermore in collaboration with Prof. Maurizio Prato and Prof. Laura Ballerini of the University of Trieste, we also study of electrical and morphological properties of functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNT) for applications in the field of drug delivery, tissue engineering and fundamental neurophysiology.

Retrieve article

Electron transfer mediating properties of hydrocarbons as a function of chain length: A differential scanning conductive tip atomic force microscopy investigation, Scaini, D., Castronovo, M., Casalis, L., Scoles, G. , ACS Nano 2, 507 (2008)

Last Updated on Monday, 20 July 2020 14:36