Single-molecule spectroscopy of conjugated molecules between nanoscale metallic structures

在电子器件中使用单个共轭分子作为活性元件目前被认为是半导体纳米电子学的一种替代方案，因为它直接提供了定义良好的纳米级构建块。然而，对这类器件中的金属-分子接触和电子传输机制的详细了解还没有实现。在这里，硫醇功能化的共轭聚合物将被沉积在纳米光刻制备的金蝴蝶结纳米天线之间。这些纳米天线提供了入射电磁场的巨大增强，从而允许进行单分子表面增强的拉曼光谱研究，与散射和单分子荧光研究一起，有望更深入地了解分子-金属接触的性质。通过在由共轭分子桥接的纳米天线上施加电场，可以尝试同时测量单分子的光学和电子传输性质的未知区域，这有望为单分子的电子传输机制提供新的见解。

The use of single conjugated molecules as active components in electronic devices is presently considered an alternative to semiconductor based nano-electronics since it directly provides well-defined nano-scale building blocks. However, a detailed understanding of the metal-molecule contacts and the electron transport mechanisms in such devices has not yet been achieved. Here, thiol-functionalized conjugated polymers shall be deposited between nanolithographically prepared gold bow-tie nanoantennas. These nanoantennas provide huge enhancements of incident electro-magnetic fields thereby allowing for single-molecule surface-enhanced Ramanspectroscopy studies which are expected, together with scattering and single-molecule fluorescence investigations, to give more insight into the nature of the molecule-metal contacts. The uncharted regime of simultaneous measurement of optical and electron transport properties of single molecules shall be attempted by applying electric fields to nanoantennas bridged by conjugated molecules which is expected to give new insights into the electron transport mechanisms through single molecules.