Resonant Transport in Single Diketopyrrolopyrrole Junctions

Abstract

We study the single-molecule transport properties of small bandgap diketopyrrolopyrrole oligomers (DPPn, n = 1–4) with lengths varying from 1 to 5 nm. At a low bias voltage, the conductance decays exponentially as a function of length indicative of nonresonant transport. However, at a high bias voltage, we observe a remarkably high conductance close to 10–2 G0 with currents reaching over 0.1 μA across all four oligomers. These unique transport properties, together with density functional theory-based transport calculations, suggest a mechanism of resonant transport across the highly delocalized DPP backbones in the high bias regime. This study thus demonstrates the unique properties of diketopyrrolopyrrole derivatives in achieving highly efficient long-range charge transport in single-molecule devices.