Electrical characteristics of layered palladium alkanethiolates by conducting atomic force microscopy

Abstract

Current-voltage measurements on individual Pd(II) alkanethiolate nanostructures of varying bilayer thicknesses (hexyl to hexadecyl) employing conducting atomic force microscopy have shown the presence of a low current region near zero bias, the width of which increases with the bilayer thickness. The resistance in this region varies exponentially with the bilayer thickness with a low decay parameter value of 0.2±0.04 Å^-1 indicating a long-range nonresonant tunneling through the alkyl chains. The changeover from low current to high current with increasing bias is accompanied by a negative differential resistance feature, which arises due to Pd-S charge transfer.