Crossbar nanoarchitectonics of the crosslinked self-assembled monolayer

A bottom-up approach was devised to build a crossbar device using the crosslinked SAM of the 5,5'-bis (mercaptomethyl)-2,2'-bipyridine-Ni(2+) (BPD- Ni(2+)) on a gold surface. To avoid metal diffusion through the organic film, the author used (i) nanoscale bottom electrodes to reduce the probability of defects on the bottom electrodes and (ii) molecular crosslinked technology to avoid metal diffusion through the SAMs. The properties of the crosslinked self-assembled monolayer were determined by XPS. I-V characteristics of the device show thermally activated hopping transport. The implementation of this type of architecture will open up new vistas for a new class of devices for transport, storage, and computing.