Conductive Metal-Organic Framework Thin Film Hybrids by Electropolymerization of Monosubstituted Acetylenes

1-Hexyne monomers were potentiostatically electropolymerized upon confinement in 1D channels of a surface-mounted metal-organic framework Cu(BDC) (SURMOF-2). A layer-by-layer deposition method allowed for SURMOF depostition on substrates with prepatterned electrodes, making it possible to characterize electrical conductivity in situ, i.e., without having to delaminate the conductive polymer thin film. Successful polymerization was evidenced by mass spectroscopy, and the electrical measurements demonstrated an increase of the electrical conductivity of the MOF material by 8 orders of magnitude. Extensive DFT calculations revealed that the final conductivity is limited by electron hopping between the conductive oligomers.

Tuning resistive switching on single-pulse doped multilayer memristors

Short-period multilayers containing ultrathin atomic layers of Al embedded in titanium dioxide (TiO(2)) film-here called single-pulse doped multilayers-are fabricated by atomic layer deposition (ALD) growth methods. The approach explored here is to use Al atoms through single-pulsed deposition to locally modify the chemical environment of TiO(2) films, establishing a chemical control over the resistive switching properties of metal/oxide/metal devices. We show that this simple methodology can be employed to produce well-defined and controlled electrical characteristics on oxide thin films without compound segregation. The increase in volume of the embedded Al(2)O(3) plays a crucial role in tuning the conductance of devices, as well as the switching bias. The stacking of these oxide compounds and their use in electrical devices is investigated with respect to possible crystalline phases and local compound formation via chemical recombination. It is shown that our method can be used to produce compounds that cannot be synthesized a priori by direct ALD growth procedures but are of interest due to specific properties such as thermal or chemical stability, electrical resistivity or electric field polarization possibilities. The monolayer doping discussed here impacts considerably on the broadening of the spectrum of performance and technological applications of ALD-based memristors, allowing for additional degrees of freedom in the engineering of oxide devices.

Rolled-up nanomembranes as compact 3D architectures for field effect transistors and fluidic sensing applications

We fabricate inorganic thin film transistors with bending radii of less than 5 μm maintaining their high electronic performance with on-off ratios of more than 10(5) and subthreshold swings of 160 mV/dec. The fabrication technology relies on the roll-up of highly strained semiconducting nanomembranes, which compacts planar transistors into three-dimensional tubular architectures opening intriguing potential for microfluidic applications. Our technique probes the ultimate limit for the bending radius of high performance thin film transistors.

Tuning giant magnetoresistance in rolled-up Co-Cu nanomembranes by strain engineering

Compact rolled-up Co-Cu nanomembranes of high quality with different numbers of windings are realized by strain engineering. A profound analysis of magnetoresistance (MR) is performed for tubes with a single winding and a varied number of Co-Cu bilayers in the stack. Rolled-up nanomembranes with up to 12 Co-Cu bilayers are successfully fabricated by tailoring the strain state of the Cr bottom layer. By carrying out an angular dependent study, we ruled out the contribution from anisotropic MR and confirm that rolled-up Co-Cu multilayers exhibit giant magnetoresistance (GMR). No significant difference of MR is found for a single wound tube compared with planar devices. In contrast, MR in tubes with multiple windings is increased at low deposition rates of the Cr bottom layer, whereas the effect is not observable at higher rates, suggesting that interface roughness plays an important role in determining the GMR effect of the rolled-up nanomembranes. Furthermore, besides a linear increase of the MR with the number of windings, the self-rolling of nanomembranes substantially reduces the device footprint area.

Hybrid organic/inorganic molecular heterojunctions based on strained nanomembranes

In this work, we combine self-assembly and top-down methods to create hybrid junctions consisting of single organic molecular monolayers sandwiched between metal and/or single-crystalline semiconductor nanomembrane based electrodes. The fabrication process is fully integrative and produces a yield loss of less than 5% on-chip. The nanomembrane-based electrodes guarantee a soft yet robust contact to the molecules where the presence of pinholes and other defects becomes almost irrelevant. We also pioneer the fabrication and characterization of semiconductor/molecule/semiconductor tunneling heterojunctions which exhibit a double transition from direct tunneling to field emission and back to direct tunneling, a phenomenon which has not been reported previously.

Nanomembrane-based mesoscopic superconducting hybrid junctions

A new method for combining top-down and bottom-up approaches to create superconductor-normal metal-superconductor niobium-based Josephson junctions is presented. Using a rolled-up semiconductor nanomembrane as scaffolding, we are able to create mesoscopic gold filament proximity junctions. These are created by electromigration of gold filaments after inducing an electric field mediated breakdown in the semiconductor nanomembrane, which can generate nanometer sized structures merely using conventional optical lithography techniques. We find that the created point contact junctions exhibit large critical currents of a few milliamps at 4.2 K and an I(c)R(n) product placing their characteristic frequency in the terahertz region. These nanometer-sized filament devices can be further optimized and integrated on a chip for their use in superconductor hybrid electronics circuits.

Relationship between chain length, disorder, and resistivity in polypyrrole films

The effects of the polymerization temperature and of voltammetric cycling on the chain length and the resistivity of polypyrrole films are investigated. The studies provide further proof for the existence of at least two different types of polypyrrole, the so-called PPy I and PPy II. As the electropolymerization of conjugated systems in contrast to normal polymerization reactions is a fully activated process, the generation of these different types of PPy depends on experimental parameters such as temperature or formation potentials. UV-vis measurements demonstrate that PPy II comprises significantly shorter chains than PPy I (8-12 vs 32-64 units); moreover, film conductivity is found to increase with the fraction of PPy II. This fraction is changed via the polymerization temperature as well as by cyclic voltammetry, both of which can induce a metal-insulator transition. The counter-intuitive relationship between resistivity and chain length is interpreted in terms of disorder-dominated transport, in which the shorter chains of PPy II support the formation of delocalized electronic states, thereby increasing the localization length. Thus, our results are in agreement with recent broadband reflectivity measurements.