Graphene nanogap for gate-tunable quantum-coherent single-molecule electronics

Journal article, 2011

We present atomistic calculations of quantum coherent electron transport through fulleropyrrolidine terminated molecules bridging a graphene nanogap. We predict that three difficult problems in molecular electronics with single molecules can be solved by utilizing graphene contacts: (1) a back gate modulating the Fermi level in the graphene leads facilitates control of the device conductance in a transistor effect with high on-off current ratio; (2) the size mismatch between leads and molecule is avoided, in contrast to the traditional metal contacts; (3) as a consequence, distinct features in charge flow patterns throughout the device are directly detectable by scanning techniques. We show that moderate graphene edge disorder is unimportant for the transistor function.