Statistical investigation of the length-dependent deviations in the electrical characteristics of molecular electronic junctions fabricated using the direct metal transfer method

Abstract

We fabricated and analyzed the electrical transport characteristics of vertical type alkanethiolate molecular junctions using the high-yield fabrication method that we previously reported. The electrical characteristics of the molecular electronic junctions were statistically collected and investigated in terms of current density and transport parameters based on the Simmons tunneling model, and we determined representative current-voltage characteristics of the molecular junctions. In particular, we examined the statistical variations in the length-dependent electrical characteristics, especially the Gaussian standard deviation sigma of the current density histogram. From the results, we found that the magnitude of the sigma value can be dependent on the individual molecular length due to specific microscopic structures in the molecular junctions. The probable origin of the molecular length-dependent deviation of the electrical characteristics is discussed.