ELECTRONIC CONDUCTION THROUGH ORGANIC-MOLECULES

In this paper, we present a method for computing the resistance of mol ecular wires and illustrate it with a systematic theoretical study of a particular class of organic molecules. These molecules consist of on e or more benzene rings with a thiol(-SH) group at the ends. This end group can attach readily to metallic surfaces, thus allowing the molec ule to function as a nanoelectronic interconnect. The conduction throu gh these molecules at low bias occurs by tunneling, leading to resista nces that are typically several tens of megaohms. The resistance goes up exponentially with the number of rings and is sensitive to the rela tive orientation of the rings and the bonding between them. The Green- function-based method presented here provides a powerful tool for accu rate modeling of the semi-infinite contacts that are used to measure m olecular resistance.