Three-state molecular potentiometer based on a non-symmetrically positioned in-backbone linker
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2021-07Referencia bibliográfica
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2021,9, 16282-16289
Sponsorship
We acknowledge the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO, Spain; CTQ2017-85454-C2-1-P), the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MICIU, Spain; PGC2018‐101181‐B‐I00; PGC2018-101873-A-I00) and the Comunidad de Madrid (project NanoMagCOST, CM S2018/NMT-4321). We also thank the Severo Ochoa Programme for Center of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2016-0686), the “María de Maeztu” Programme for Units of Excellence in R&D (grant No. CEX2018-000805-M) and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (ERC‐2015‐STG‐677023) for financial support. E. L. thanks the Comunidad de Madrid Atracción de Talento grant 2019-T1/IND-16384. P. R. thanks MINECO for a FPU contract and Universidad de Granada for a “Contrato-Puente”. I. R. M. thanks MICINN for a Personal Técnico de Apoyo contract (PTA2017‐13681‐I).Abstract
We report on the synthesis and single-molecule conductance of a para-oligo(phenylene)ethynylene (p-OPE) derivative with three well-defined conductance states. Employing theoretical models and comparing to reference compounds we show that this effect is due to the presence of the internal non-symmetrically placed pyrimidine ring, acting as an in-backbone anchor group. This is the first example in which the non-symmetric positioning of an internal binding site opens up two new conduction channels, giving rise, in a simple way, to a system that displays three conduction pathways which differ distinctively in both conductance and length