OPE molecular junction as a hydrogen gas sensor

Oligo(phenylene ethynylene) (OPE) molecular junction has been suggested as a H₂ molecule sensor based on calculations using the first principles of density–functional theory and non-equilibrium Green's function. The electronic transport properties of the OPE molecule between two Au electrodes with or without adsorbed H₂ molecules are investigated. Results show that the adsorbed H₂ molecule significantly changes the characteristics of the current–voltage curve of the OPE molecular junction. The pure OPE molecular junction exhibits a significant negative differential resistance, but this kind of phenomenon will disappear or weaken after hydrogen molecules are adsorbed. The conductance of the junction also obviously decreases in the bias range of [−0.4, 0.4] V after adsorbing H₂ molecules. These effects can be used to design a H₂ molecule sensor.     

First-principles study of the electron transport through conjugated molecular wires with different carbon backbones

The nonequilibrium Green’s function approach in combination with density-functional theory is used to perform ab initio quantum-mechanical calculations of the electron transport properties of polyacetylene, polythiophene, poly(phenylene vinylene), poly(p-phenylene ethynylene), and poly(p-phenylene) molecules sandwiched between two gold electrodes. The results demonstrate that the conjugation path has a profound effect on the electron transport property of the molecular wires. Among the five molecular wires, polyacetylene is the most conductive one. The conductivities of the five molecular wires decrease with an order of polyacetylene > polythiophene > poly(phenylene vinylene) > poly(p-phenylene ethynylene) > poly(p-phenylene). The conductivities of polyacetylene and polythiophene are much higher than those of poly(phenylene vinylene), poly(p-phenylene ethynylene), and poly(p-phenylene). The difference of electron transport behaviors of these molecular wires are analyzed in terms of the electronic structures, the transmission spectra, and the spatial distributions of molecular orbitals.     

单硫醇分子结的几何结构和电输运性质:压力效应与末端基团效应

利用杂化密度泛函理论,研究了以甲基、醇基、羧基为末端基团的烷烃硫醇分子与金电极形成分子结的过程,得到了分子结的几何结构与外加压力的关系. 并在此基础上,利用弹性散射格林函数方法研究了烷烃硫醇分子的电输运性质. 研究结果表明,对于C₁₁S分子来说,当两电极距离大于2.1 nm时,该分子结断裂;对于C₁₁SOH和C₁₀SCOOH来说,相应的分子结断裂的电极距离基本相同(2.15 nm). 在相同的外加压力(4.0 nN)下,C_{11关键词： 压力 末端基团 烷烃硫醇分子 电输运性质}     

Effect of end groups on contact resistance of alkanethiol based metal-molecule-metal junctions using current sensing AFM

Tuning the charge transport through a metal-molecule-metal junction by changing the interface properties is widely studied and is of paramount importance for applications in molecular electronic devices. We used current sensing atomic force microscopy (CSAFM) as a tool to study the contact resistance of metal-molecule-metal (MmM) junctions formed by sandwiching self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiols with various end groups (-CH₃, -OH and -NH₂) between Au(1 1 1) substrates and Au coated AFM tips. The effect of interface chemistry on charge transport through such SAMs with varying end groups was studied in an inert, non-polar liquid (hexadecane) environment. We find that the contact resistances of these MmM junctions vary significantly based on the end group chemistry of the molecules.     

Ca掺杂的氧化铍纳米管吸附H2O和NH3的选择传感特

通过密度泛函计算, 借助NH₃和H₂O分子对未掺杂以及钙掺杂的BeO碳纳米管的结构和电传导性进行了研究. 结果发现,NH₃和H₂O分子可以吸附在纳米管侧壁的Be原子上,吸附能分别为约36.1和39.0 kcal/mol. 态密度分析显示BeO纳米管的电传导性在吸附后稍有变化. 对于NH₃和H₂O分子,纳米管表面的钙原子替换Be原子可使吸附能分别增加约7.4和14.7 kcal/mol. 与未掺杂纳米管不同的是,钙掺杂BeONT吸附NH₃和H₂O分子的电传导性更加敏感,且H₂O分子比NH₃分子更敏感.     

Structure and electronic properties of a heterojunction between a single wall carbon nanotube and a TiC cluster

Atomic structures and electronic properties of heterojunctions of Ti-TiC and TiC-single wall carbon nanotube, Ti₄₈-Ti₁₉C₂₆ and Ti₁₉C₂₄-C₃₀, are studied by the first principles calculation based on the density functional theory. At the junctions, these substrates are smoothly connected with each other and keep their original structures and electronic properties. The structures of the junctions obtained in the present work give a realistic model to ab initio study for electronic transport properties through the junction of a carbon nanotube and an electrode.     

Controlling spin off state by gas molecules adsorption on metal-phthalocyanine molecular junctions and its possibility of gas sensor

Employing Green's function (GF) technique in combination with spin-polarized density functional theory (DFT), we study the electronic structure and magnetic properties of metal phthalocyanine (MPc) (M?=?Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn) with or without four different gas molecules (NO, CO, O₂ and NO₂) adsorbing on the M atom of MPc molecule. The corresponding stable adsorption structural configurations and transport properties of MPc molecular junctions are also investigated. Our results indicate that the magnetic moment of MPc for M?=?Mn, Fe and Co can be modified by the specific gas molecule adsorption, which is mainly ascribed to competitive relation of HOMO-LUMO Gap and Hund's rules. However, for M?=?Ni, Cu and Zn, it is difficult to detect gas molecule because the interaction of M atom and these gases is most of weak van der Waals interaction. Remarkably, the spin of MPc molecule can be switched to a magnetic off-state by specific gas absorption, giving rise to a potential application on controllable spintronic devices. In addition, CO, NO, O₂ and NO₂ gas molecules can be detected selectively by measuring spin filter efficiency of these MPc molecular junctions. On the basis of our results, MPc (M?=?Mn, Fe, Co) molecular junctions can be considered as a promising nanosensor device to detect individual gas molecules.     

分层掺B和吸附H2O碳纳米管的结构稳定性及电子场发射性能

运用基于第一性原理的密度泛函理论,系统研究了处于外电场中分层掺B并吸附不同数目H₂O碳纳米管体系的结构稳定性和电子场发射性能. 研究表明:第3层掺B并吸附5个H₂O的B₃CNT+5H₂O体系结构最稳定,管帽处Mulliken电荷最密集,尤其与单独掺B的B₃CNT和单独吸附H₂O的B₃CNT+5H₂O相比,其Fermi能级处态密度分别     

水分子对碳链的输运性质影响的第一性原理研究

用基于密度泛函理论的非平衡格林函数方法研究了水分子对7个碳原子组成的一维原子链的输运性质的影响.碳原子链放在具有有限截面的Al(100)电极中.研究发现，碳原子链上的水分子的数目和放置的位置的不同将对体系输运性质产生很大的影响.特别是，单个H₂O分子对碳链平衡电导的影响随其摆放位置的不同而出现奇偶振荡，例如，当位于奇数编号的碳原子上时，电导取极大值，当位于偶数编号的碳原子上时，取极小值.将两个H₂O分子置于不同的碳原子正上方时，在不同的位置平衡电导相差很大，在某些特殊的情况下原本受到抑止的第三个本征通道也有较大的贡献.此外，还研究了放置两个水分子时，体系的电流-电压(I-V)特性，随着水分子的数目和放置的位置不同，某些情况可能出现较大幅度的负微分电阻，而在另一些情况下却没有出现. 关键词： 平衡电导 透射谱 负微分电阻     

Mott insulator-superfluid phase transition in p-band triangle optical lattices with on-site rotation

In order to exploit the potential applications of graphene as gas sensors, the adsorptions of a series of small gas molecules (such as CO, O₂, NO₂ and H₂O) on pristine graphene (PG) and Si-doped graphene (SiG) have been investigated by ab initio calculations. Our results indicate that the electronic properties of PG are sensitive to O₂ and NO₂ molecules, but not changed much by the adsorption of CO and H₂O molecules. Compared with PG, SiG is much more reactive in the adsorption of CO, O₂, NO₂ and H₂O. The strong interactions between SiG and the adsorbed molecules induce dramatic changes to the electronic properties of SiG. Therefore, we suggest that SiG could be a good gas sensor for CO, O₂, NO₂ and H₂O.     

Molecular rectification of thiol-linked Au|PTCDI-[CH2]n|Au junctions

The electronic transport properties of the PTCDI-[CH₂]_n(0≤n≤6) molecular junctions with different molecular lengths are theoretically investigated via the first-principles density functional theory (DFT) and non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method. Our results show that the transport properties depend on molecular lengths. The equilibrium conductance of the probed systems decreases exponentially with the increasing number n of the CH₂ unit. With n≥1, the rectifying effect has been found. In the n=6 case, a significant rectification ratio of 72.6 is achieved at the bias of ±2.1 V in our probed voltage range. The rectification effect arises from asymmetric molecular structures. Our results suggest these molecules have great potential application in the molecular-scale device.     

Two Possible Configurations for Silver-C60-Silver Molecular Devices and Their Conductance Characteristics

Coherent electronic transport properties of silver-C60-silver molecular junctions in different configurations are studied using hybrid density function theory. The experimentally measured current flows of （760 molecules adsorbed on the silver surface are well reproduced by theoretical calculations. It is found that the current-voltage characteristics of the molecular junctions depend strongly on the configurations of the junctions. Transmission spectra combined with density of states can help us to understand in depth the transport properties. Different kinds of electrode construction are also discussed. With the help of the calculation, two possible configurations of silver-C60-silver molecular junctions are suggested.     

Synthesis and luminescent properties of carbazole end-capped phenylene ethynylene compounds

A class of highly fluorescent and stable carbazole end-capped phenylene ethynylene compounds have been synthesized and the comparative photophysical studies are presented. These compounds exhibit intense violet-blue emission in CH₂Cl₂ solution (λ_max^em≈383–420 nm, Φ_F≈0.36–0.88, τ_F≈1.14–6.63 ns), and show a red-shifted emission in the solid state relative to that in solution. The extent of the shift is highly dependent on the nature of the substituents and the π-conjugation length of phenylene ethynylene component. Their photophysical properties and structural characterization have been investigated with the aim to provide a basis for elucidating the structure–property correlations and developing new blue-emitting materials in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).     

Electronic energy transfer between dye molecules in structured solutions of H<Subscript>2</Subscript>O and D<Subscript>2</Subscript>O

The structure of H₂O+D₂O solutions was studied by correlation spectroscopy of scattered light. The correlation function and size of scatterers were both found to depend nonmonotonically on the D₂O concentration in the H₂O+D₂O mixture. Processes of transfer of electronic excitation energy between dye molecules of different types in H₂O+D₂O solutions were studied. The efficiency of these processes was found to depend extremally on the concentration of the components of the solution. A fractal distribution of the interacting dye molecules is ascertained from the experimental data. The dependence of the fractal dimensionality of the dye solutions on the D₂O concentration in the D₂O+H₂O mixture is determined.     

Electronic Transport in Molecular Junction Based on C20 Cages

Choosing closed-ended armchair （5, 5） single-wall carbon nanotubes （CCNTs） as electrodes, we investigate the electron transport properties across an all-carbon molecular junction consisting of C20 molecules suspended between two semi-infinite carbon nanotubes. It is shown that the conductances are quite sensitive to the number of C20 molecules between electrodes for both configuration CF1 and double-bonded models： the conductances of C20 dimers are markedly smaller than those of monomers. The physics is that incident electrons easily pass the C20 molecules and are predominantly scattered at the C20-C20 junctions. Moreover, we study the doping effect of such molecular junction by doping nitrogen atoms substitutionally. The bonding property of the molecular junction with configuration CF1 has been analysed by calculating the Mulliken atomic charges. Our results have revealed that the C atoms in N-doped junctions are more ionic than those in pure-carbon ones, leading to the fact that N-doped junctions have relatively large conductance.     

Transport properties of carbon atomic wire in the environment of H2O molecules: An ab initio study

The transport properties of carbon atomic wire in the environment of H₂O molecules are studied by the non-equilibrium Green function method based on density functional theory. In particular, the carbon wire with seven atoms sandwiched between the Al(1 0 0) electrodes is considered. It is found that the transport properties are sensitive to the variation of the number and the position of the H₂O molecule adsorbed on the carbon wire. To our surprise, with different positions of a single H₂O molecule on the carbon wire, the equilibrium conductance shows an evident odd–even oscillatory behavior. For example, the equilibrium conductance of the carbon wire becomes bigger when the H₂O is adsorbed on the odd-numbered carbon atoms; an opposite conclusion is obtained for the H₂O adsorbed on the even-numbered carbon atoms. For the cases of two H₂O molecules, the equilibrium conductance varies largely and the contribution of the third eigenchannel becomes larger in some special configurations. The calculated current–voltage curves show different behavior with the variation of the positions of the H₂O molecules. In certain cases, large negative differential resistance (NDR) is shown, while in other cases, it only slightly deviates from the linear behavior. The above behavior is analyzed via the charge transfer and the density of states (DOS) and reasonable explanations are presented.     

水蒸气对二氧化硅膜的影响：吸附性能与渗流效应

研究了在50和90 oC时水蒸气对孔径约为4 ?的二氧化硅膜的吸附性能和渗流效应影响,采用椭圆偏振光谱分析水蒸气的吸附性能,以及测定氦气-H₂O二元混合气体的透过性能. 研究表明水蒸气在二氧化硅膜上的吸附行为符合一阶Langmuir等温线,同时,在H₂O分子存在的条件下,氦气的透过率会急剧下降. 通常,在极小孔内气体分子的传输被认为是不连续的,而是在势能下从一个占有位置跳跃到另外一个空位上. 当在二氧化硅表面的H₂O分子覆盖率上升时,氦气的透过率急剧下降可能与渗流效应有关,其中吸附在二氧化硅表面的H₂O分子阻碍了氦气分子的跳跃.     

Theoretical study of molecular properties of low-lying electronic excited states of H2O and H2S

Geometries, excitation energies, dipole moments and dipole polarisability tensor components of the ground and four lowest excited states ³ B ₁, ¹ B ₁, ³ A ₂, ¹ A ₂ of the H₂O and H₂S molecules were calculated at the CASSCF, CASPT2, CCSD and CCSD(T) level of approximation. Vertical excitation and equilibrium transition energies of these states, having the Rydberg character, are reported too. Properties of both molecules in the ground and in low lying excited states are compared and discussed from the point of view of their molecular electronic structure. Upon excitation we observe dramatic changes of dipole moments and polarisabilities with respect to the ground state. We stress the change of the polarity of H₂O in all excited states accompanied by the enhancement of the dipole polarisability by an order of magnitude. Large, even if less pronounced, are changes of electric properties of H₂S in its excited states. Dipole moments and dipole polarisabilities of ³ B ₁, ¹ B ₁ states of H₂S and H₂O behave quite analogously in comparison to their respective ground state. The general pattern of properties for both molecules in their ³ A ₂ and ¹ A ₂ excited states is more different due to a pronounced participation of the sulphur d-orbitals in these states of the H₂S molecule.     

Determination of the rate constant of oxygen quenching of the excited states of molecules from the singlet oxygen luminescence

We have pioneered a method of determining the rate constant of quenching of the excited electronic states of molecules by molecular oxygen from measurements of the kinetics of photosensitized luminescence of singlet molecular oxygen (^lδ_g). The method can be used in the case where the lifetime of the excited electronic state in an air-saturated solution is comparable with or larger than the luminescence time of the singlet molecular oxygen in the given solvent. It is shown that this situation is implemented on quenching, by molecular oxygen, of the excited triplet states associated with the biopolymers of tetrapyrrole molecules in aqueous (H₂O and D₂O) solutions. Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 401–404, May–June, 2000.     

Metal-molecule contacts and charge transport across monomolecular layers: measurement and theory

Charge transport studies across molecular length scales under symmetric and asymmetric metal-molecule contact conditions using a simple crossed-wire tunnel junction technique are presented. It is demonstrated that oligo(phenylene ethynylene), a conjugated organic molecule, acts like a molecular wire under symmetric contact conditions, but exhibits characteristics of a molecular diode when the connections are asymmetric. To understand this behavior, we have calculated current-voltage (I-V) characteristics using extended Huckel theory coupled with a Green's function approach. The experimentally observed I-V characteristics are in excellent qualitative agreement with the theory.