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Ambient Bistable Single Dipole Switching in a Molecular Monolayer
Author(s) -
Cui Kang,
Mali Kunal S.,
Wu Dongqing,
Feng Xinliang,
Müllen Klaus,
Walter Michael,
De Feyter Steven,
Mertens Stijn F. L.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.202004016
Subject(s) - bistability , scanning tunneling microscope , dipole , stacking , materials science , monolayer , substrate (aquarium) , electric field , condensed matter physics , quantum tunnelling , microscope , molecular physics , optoelectronics , chemical physics , nanotechnology , chemistry , optics , nuclear magnetic resonance , physics , oceanography , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , geology
Reported here is a molecular dipole that self‐assembles into highly ordered patterns at the liquid‐solid interface, and it can be switched at room temperature between a bright and a dark state at the single‐molecule level. Using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) under suitable bias conditions, binary information can be written at a density of up to 41 Tb cm −2 (256 Tb/in 2 ). The written information is stable during reading at room temperature, but it can also be erased at will, instantly, by proper choice of tunneling conditions. DFT calculations indicate that the contrast and switching mechanism originate from the stacking sequence of the molecular dipole, which is reoriented by the electric field between the tip and substrate.