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Inorganic and Organometallic Molecular Wires for Single‐Molecule Devices
Author(s) -
Tanaka Yuya,
Kiguchi Manabu,
Akita Munetaka
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201604812
Subject(s) - molecular wire , molecular orbital , molecular electronics , molecule , nanotechnology , metal , conductance , materials science , chemical physics , transition metal , group 2 organometallic chemistry , chemistry , computational chemistry , physics , condensed matter physics , catalysis , organic chemistry , metallurgy
Recent developments of single‐molecule conductance measurements allow us to understand fundamental conducting properties of molecular wires. While a wide variety of organic molecular wires have been studied so far, inorganic and organometallic molecular wires have received much less attention. However, molecular wires with transition‐metal atoms show interesting features and functions distinct from those of organic wires. These properties originate mainly from metal–ligand dπ–pπ interactions and metal–metal d–d interactions. Thanks to the rich combination of metal atoms and supporting ligands, frontier orbital energies of the molecular wires can be finely tuned to lead to highly conducting molecular wires. Moreover, the unique electronic structures of metal complexes are susceptible to subtle environmental changes, leading to potential functional molecular devices. This article reviews recent advances in the single‐molecule conductance study of inorganic and organometallic molecular wires.