Park H, Park J, Lim AK, Anderson EH, Alivisatos AP, McEuen PL
Department of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley, USA.
Nature. 2000 Sep 7;407(6800):57-60. doi: 10.1038/35024031.
The motion of electrons through quantum dots is strongly modified by single-electron charging and the quantization of energy levels. Much effort has been directed towards extending studies of electron transport to chemical nanostructures, including molecules, nanocrystals and nanotubes. Here we report the fabrication of single-molecule transistors based on individual C60 molecules connected to gold electrodes. We perform transport measurements that provide evidence for a coupling between the centre-of-mass motion of the C60 molecules and single-electron hopping--a conduction mechanism that has not been observed previously in quantum dot studies. The coupling is manifest as quantized nano-mechanical oscillations of the C60 molecule against the gold surface, with a frequency of about 1.2 THz. This value is in good agreement with a simple theoretical estimate based on van der Waals and electrostatic interactions between C60 molecules and gold electrodes.
单电子充电和能级量子化会强烈改变电子通过量子点的运动。人们已付出诸多努力，将电子输运研究扩展至化学纳米结构，包括分子、纳米晶体和纳米管。在此，我们报告基于连接到金电极的单个C60分子制造单分子晶体管。我们进行了输运测量，为C60分子的质心运动与单电子跳跃之间的耦合提供了证据——这是一种此前在量子点研究中未被观察到的传导机制。这种耦合表现为C60分子相对于金表面的量子化纳米机械振荡，频率约为1.2太赫兹。该值与基于C60分子和金电极之间范德华力和静电相互作用的简单理论估计高度吻合。
