Molecular Electronics: Observation of Molecular Rectification

The authors review some experiments in molecular rectification and their implication for commercial uses of molecular electronic devices. Two of the cases involve rectification by single molecules which consist of an electron donor on one side, an electron acceptor on the other side, and a bridge in between, coupled to electrodes. The third case involves rectification at a graphite electrode derivatized with a Cu phthalocyanine derivative, and probed with a Pt/Ir scanning tunneling microscope tip. Some potential applications of molecular devices are in high-density memory storage of holographic memory devices, neural networks, cellular automata, and chemical and biochemical sensors.