Protonation tuning of quantum interference in azulene-type single-molecule junctions

Guogang Yang; Sara Sangtarash; Zitong Liu; Xiaohui Li; Hatef Sadeghi; Zhibing Tan; Ruihao Li; Jueting Zheng; Xiaobiao Dong; Junyang Liu; Yang Yang; Jia Shi; Zongyuan Xiao; Guanxin Zhang; Colin Lambert; Wenjing Hong; Deqing Zhang

doi:10.1039/C7SC01014A

Protonation tuning of quantum interference in azulene-type single-molecule junctions†

Guogang Yang,‡^a Sara Sangtarash,‡^b Zitong Liu,

*^c Xiaohui Li,^a Hatef Sadeghi,

^b Zhibing Tan,^a Ruihao Li,^a Jueting Zheng,^a Xiaobiao Dong,^c Junyang Liu,^a Yang Yang,^a Jia Shi,^a Zongyuan Xiao,^a Guanxin Zhang,^c Colin Lambert,

*^b Wenjing Hong

*^a and Deqing Zhang

*^c

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, iChEM, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
E-mail: whong@xmu.edu.cn

^b Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YB, UK
E-mail: c.lambert@lancaster.ac.uk

^c Organic Solids Laboratory, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
E-mail: zitong_@iccas.ac.cn, dqzhang@iccas.ac.cn

Abstract

The protonation of azulene derivatives with quantum interference effects is studied by the conductance measurements of single-molecule junctions. Three azulene derivatives with different connectivities are synthesized and reacted with trifluoroacetic acid to form the protonated states. It is found that the protonated azulene molecular junctions produce more than one order of magnitude higher conductance than the neutral states, while the molecules with destructive interference show more significant changes. These experimental observations are supported by our recently-developed parameter free theory of connectivity, which suggests that the largest conductance change occurs when destructive interference near the Fermi energy in the neutral state is alleviated by protonation.

This article is part of the themed collection: Celebrating a Century of Excellency in Chemistry at Xiamen University

Chemical Science

Protonation tuning of quantum interference in azulene-type single-molecule junctions†

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