A paper by Joe Smerdon (UCLan) and coworkers has been selected to feature as the cover of a special molecular electronics issue of Journal of Chemical Physics.
Building on previous success, we decided to construct another rectifier using the same methodology. This could only be successful if our understanding of the older results is correct. Anyway, in short, I (Joe) visited the Center for Nanoscale Materials in Argonne national Laboratory, Illinois in February 2016 to perform a follow-up experiment.
The previous work used a buffer buckyball layer to connect a pentacene rectifier to copper substrate, so that it could be measured using atomic-resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy. It turned out to be the best molecular rectifier yet reported. The new idea was that, if the buffer layer is the special thing, we should be able to make an equally good rectifier of the opposite polarity using — more buckyballs! (Pentacene is a great electron donor; a buckyball is a great electron acceptor.)
By day 3 I had all the data I needed: the buckyball rectifier was just as good as the pentacene one, and in the opposite polarity.
Thus commenced the quickest experiment conception to published paper cycle I have ever experienced: by March 2017, it was the cover article for a special issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics on molecular electronics!
Article in J. Chem. Phys.