Suspicion Confirmed: Flat Molecules Better for Conducting Electricity

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Conductance vs. Conformance: The diagram above illustrates how the conductance of the molecule (the green yellow or red structure in the center of each model) drops as its two benzene rings are rotated relative to one another. On the far left the mol ...
Conductance vs. Conformance: The diagram above illustrates how the conductance of the molecule (the green, yellow or red structure in the center of each model) drops as its two benzene rings are rotated relative to one another. On the far left the molecule is shown in its flattest form, and has the highest conductance. Diagram courtesy of L. Venkataraman.

Columbia research scientist Latha Venkataraman has demonstrated that in creating single-molecule electronic devices, flatter molecules conduct electricity better. That principle has long been suspected, but to demonstrate it definitively required an innovation to existing methods for measuring conductance in nano-scale objects.


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