Molecular Nanoprobe – utilizing a single molecule as detector
Markus Leisegang
Faculty of Physics, Experimental Physics 2, University of Wuerzburg
Understanding the propagation of charge carriers at the nanometer scale is of
great interest for optimizing electronic circuits, but its investigation still remains
a challenging task. In order to get real space access to charge carrier transport
at distances of the mean free path and thus in the ballistic regime, we invented
the molecular nanoprobe (MONA). I will present this technique, where a single
molecule serves as a detector for charge carriers injected remotely by an STM
tip. We have performed measurements on various substrates, revealing the
transport in surface states, interference and scattering of charge carriers on
atomic structures and, most recently, spin-momentum locked transport of spinpolarized
charge carriers. Given the important role of the molecule as a detector,
I will discuss the required properties and our results for different molecular
switches in the context of our MONA experiments.