Kasper Norgaard: Chemically Derived Graphene as Soft Electrodes for Solid-State Molecular Electronic Devices

A central challenge in the field of molecular electronics concerns the formation of reliable and reproducible contact between molecule and electrode. At the single molecule level, recent work has explored the use of parallel self-assembly strategies towards the formation of multiple single-molecule devices, wherein the molecule-electrode interface is controlled with atomic precision. The use of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) offer a complementary approach for fabricating molecular electronic devices more amenable to mass production and integration. The talk will present recent progress in the fabrication of permanent, solid-state, molecular devices employing chemically derived graphene as a soft top-contact. The graphene serves a dual purpose in that it protects the underlying monolayer from filamentary damage when evaporating a metal top electrode, while in itself functioning as a transparent and conducting electrode.