Electronic properties of organic monolayers and

molecular devices

D VUILLAUME¹, S LENFANT¹, D GUERIN¹, C DELERUE¹,

C PETIT² and G SALACE³

¹Institut d'Electronique, de Micro-electronique et de Nanotechnologie, CNRS,

Molecular Nanostructures and Devices Group,

BP69, Avenue Poincar\'e, 59652 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France

²Centre de Recherche en Sciences et Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication, Universit\'e de Reims, BP 1039, 51687 Reims Cedex 2, France

³Laboratoire de Microscopies et d'Etudes de Nanostructures,

Universit\'e de Reims, BP 1039, 51687 Reims Cedex 2, France

E-mail: dominique.vuillaume@iemn.univ-lille1.fr

Abstract. We review some of our recent experimental results on charge

transport in organic nanostructures such as self-assembled monolayer

and monolayers of organic semiconductors. We describe a molecular

rectifying junction made from a sequential self-assembly on silicon.

These devices exhibit a marked current--voltage rectification

behavior due to resonant transport between the Si conduction band and

the $\pi$ molecule highest occupied molecular orbital of the $\pi$

molecule. We discuss the role of metal Fermi level pinning in the

current--voltage behavior of these molecular junctions. We also

discuss some recent insights on the inelastic electron tunneling

behavior of Si/alkyl chain/metal junctions.

Keywords. Molecular electronics; self-assembly.

PACS Nos 85.65.+h; 81.07.Nb