| Ever since hemiquinone was presented as the first potential conductor having an electron donor catechol moiety and an electron acceptor quinone component separated by an aliphatic insulator, thus behaving as a rectifier. However, due to experimental limitations, it was not until 1988 that this rectifying behavior could be confirmed by scanning tunneling microscopic measurements, but even then these early experiments were marred by irreproducibility. Since then, with rapidly improving technology, different strategies were developed to probe the conducting properties of different kinds of molecules with much improved reducibility. With these experimental probes the design of a molecular-level conductor essentially consists of selecting a combination of the backbone of the molecule, its functional anchoring groups and the choice of the metal electrode that all complement each other.;In this study, the conduction properties of aromatic isocyanide-based molecules were studied on different metal surfaces. 1,4 phenyldiisocyanide (PDI), 2,3,5,6-Tetrachloro 1,4-phenyldiisocyanide (TMPDI) and 2,3,5,6-Tetramethyl 1,4-phenyldiisocyanide (TMPDI) are the simplest molecular-level linker conductors used in this study. Organometallic polymers of varying lengths were also studied; (CNC6H4NC)2W(DPPE) 2 (1W), (CNC6H4NC)3(W(DPPE)2) 2 (2W) and (CNC6H4NC)4(W(DPPE) 2)3 (3W) were probed for their conduction properties.;Before the conduction properties can be investigated, the surface manner in which the linker molecules bond to the surface of a metal electrode is investigated. Such a study has been performed on solution self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of the linker and organometallic polymer molecules on evaporated meal films. In order to perform a more systematic study, the linker molecules were adsorbed onto single crystal Pd(111) surfaces and ultra high vacuum surface science techniques were used to investigate the surface chemistry. Reflection-Absorption Infrared Spectroscopy, (RAIRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and temperature programmed desorption spectroscopy (TPD) were the surface science techniques used in this study. |
