This Americas Program award will fund a cooperative research project between Drs. Mark Ratner, Northwestern University and Vladimiro Mujica, Universidad Central de Venezuela, for an experimental/theoretical investigation into the behavior of individual molecules bonded at metal surfaces. The aim of the research is to try to solve the problem of how charge is transferred, both statically and dynamically, between electrodes and single molecular wire structures. To accomplish this, the researchers will prepare hybrid material interfaces, characterize them and their behavior using static spectroscopy, microscopy, transport measurements, static electronic structure theory and direct computation of the dissipative, as well as the superexchange, currents.
The proposed work is of relevance to emerging nanotechnologies. The general area of molecular electronics has been one of substantive interest in physical chemistry and materials for a number of years, and with the advent of scanning probe and atomic force microscopies it is now possible to study both structure and charge transfer on nanometer and subnanometer length scales. The collaborators are experienced in the various cross-disciplinary areas necessary to carry out this research and bring complementary skills and interest to the collaboration. Most of the experimental work and electronic structure calculations will be done at Northwestern, and much of the formal development and many body analysis will be done in Caracas. ***
