Tunneling Molecular Switches and Metal/Molecule Heterojunctions

Compressible molecules with low Young's modulus (in few MPa range) offer great possibility to modulate tunneling current across them via application of voltage in a metal/molecule - molecule/metal heterojunction. In a suitably designed device structure, such tunneling current could be tuned by millions (106) to billions (109) of times by altering the tunneling distance with an application of a voltage pulse. Moreover, such molecular tunnel junctions are not prone to adhesion, which normal NEMS based devices encounter. Due to such benefits, the operating voltage in these devices could be arbitrarily reduced to smaller values leading to low energy switch operations.

HIRG works on engineering the metal/molecule tunneling heterojunctions and design devices that acts as a tunneling electronic switch with low operating voltage.

Apart from the tunneling switch applications, molecular heterojunctions also offer a perfect testbed for fundamental current and heat transport studies in materials, and development of cost effective consumer electronic devices.

Publications:

1. B. Saha, B. Osoba, T. J .K. Liu, and J. Wu, "Nanoelectromechanical Relay Switch Operations at 40 mV enabled by Self-assembled Molecular Coating" (in-review, 2018)

2.. B. Osoba, B. Saha, L. Dougherty, J. Edgington, C. Qian, F. Niroui, J. H. Lang, V. Bulovic, J. Wu and T. J .K. Liu, "Sub-50 mV NEM Relay Operation Enabled by Self-Assembled Molecular Coating". IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) Technical Digest, pp 655-658, (2016).