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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Electrochemical Etching and Characterization of Sharp Field Emission Points for Electron Impact Ionization
Published on: July 12, 2016
Transition from direct tunneling to field emission in metal-molecule-metal junctions
Jeremy M Beebe1, BongSoo Kim, J W Gadzuk
1National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA.
Abstract:
Current-voltage measurements of metal-molecule-metal junctions formed from pi-conjugated thiols exhibit an inflection point on a plot of ln(I/V(2)) vs 1/V, consistent with a change in transport mechanism from direct tunneling to field emission. The transition voltage was found to scale linearly with the offset in energy between the Au Fermi level and the highest occupied molecular orbital as determined by ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy. Asymmetric voltage drops at the two metal-molecule interfaces cause the transition voltage to be dependent on bias polarity.
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