Enhancing Gating Performance in Organic Molecular Field-Effect Transistors by Introducing Polar Azulene Components

Organic molecular field-effect transistors (FETs) are promising building components for future electronic circuits. Efficient control of charge transport properties is one key issue in the design of organic molecular FETs. In this study, we propose a redesign of a naphthalene-based FET by introducing two azulene components in opposite dipole moment directions. Using density functional theory combined with non-equilibrium Green's function, the simulated electronic transport characteristics reveal that the introduction of polar azulene components effectively narrows the frontier molecular orbitals gap, leading to an increase in the ON-state current. Meanwhile, the OFF-state current is significantly suppressed by highly localizing the dominant electronic transport channel. As a result, improved gate controllability is achieved with a higher ON-OFF current ratio, which is nearly seven times higher than that of the naphthalene-based FET device. These findings provide theoretical directions for future design of organic molecular FET devices with enhanced gating regulation efficiency.

Nanoscale molecular rectifiers

The use of molecules bridged between two electrodes as a stable rectifier is an important goal in molecular electronics. Until recently, however, and despite extensive experimental and theoretical work, many aspects of our fundamental understanding and practical challenges have remained unresolved and prevented the realization of such devices. Recent advances in custom-designed molecular systems with rectification ratios exceeding 10⁵ have now made these systems potentially competitive with existing silicon-based devices. Here, we provide an overview and critical analysis of recent progress in molecular rectification within single molecules, self-assembled monolayers, molecular multilayers, heterostructures, and metal-organic frameworks and coordination polymers. Examples of conceptually important and best-performing systems are discussed, alongside their rectification mechanisms. We present an outlook for the field, as well as prospects for the commercialization of molecular rectifiers.

Nonexponential Length Dependence of Molecular Conductance in Acene-Based Molecular Wires

In the nonresonant regime, molecular conductance decays exponentially with distance, limiting the fabrication of efficient molecular semiconductors at the nanoscale. In this work, we calculate the conductance of a series of acene derivatives connected to gold electrodes using density functional theory (DFT) combined with the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism. We show that these systems have near length-independent conductance and can exhibit a conductance increase with molecular length depending on the connection to the electrodes. The analysis of the molecular orbital energies and transmission functions attribute this behavior to the dramatic decrease of the highest occupied molecular orbital-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (HOMO-LUMO) gap with length, which shifts the transmission peaks near the Fermi level. These results demonstrate that the anchoring configuration determines the conductance behavior of acene derivatives, which are optimal building blocks to fabricate single-molecule devices with tunable charge transport properties.