Synthesis and electrical characterization of oligo(phenylene ethynylene) molecular wires coordinated to transition metal complexes.

Organometallic wires are interesting alternatives to conventional molecular wires based on a pure organic system because of the presence of d orbitals in the transition metal complex. However, synthetic problems, such as decreased stability of the compounds when labile metal complexes are present, often impede their isolation in a pure state and preclude a rapid development of such hybrid molecular wires. In this work, we show that preassembled self-assembled monolayers (SAM) based on pyridine-terminated 1-((4-acetylthiophenyl)ethynyl)-4-((4-pyridyl)ethynyl)benzene can act as a template for the architectural build up of a second layer of transition metal complexes to form an array of organometallic molecular wires on gold.

Diamond-based molecular platform for photoelectrochemistry.

Boron doped diamond (BDD) thin film was found to exhibit higher photocurrent conversion efficiencies and photostability compared to commonly used transparent conducting oxides (ITO and FTO) owing to the matching energy levels and strong C-C bonding at the organic/diamond interface.

Surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy and electrochemistry study of 4-nitro-1,2-phenylenediamine: a switchable redox polymer with nitro functional groups.

Electrochemistry and electrochemical surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopy have been applied to study the electrochemical deposition and the redox transition of poly(4-nitro-1,2-phenylenediamine) (P4NoPD) on gold disk. It was shown that SPR can be the signal transducer for the different redox states of P4NoPD. Using a model biomolecular system, involving streptavidin, biotinylated DNA, and its complementary target DNA, it was found that the presence of nitro groups in P4NoPD allows the biorecognition events to be modulated by voltages.