Light-triggered self-construction of supramolecular organic nanowires as metallic interconnects

Abstract

The construction of soft and processable organic material able to display metallic conduction properties—a large density of freely moving charges—is a major challenge for electronics. Films of doped conjugated polymers are widely used as semiconductor devices, but metallic-type transport in the bulk of such materials remains extremely rare. On the other hand, single-walled carbon nanotubes can exhibit remarkably low contact resistances with related large currents, but are intrinsically very difficult to isolate and process. Here, we describe the self-assembly of supramolecular organic nanowires between two metallic electrodes, from a solution of triarylamine derivative, under the simultaneous action of light and electric field triggers. They exhibit a combination of large conductivity values (>5 × 103 S m−1) and a low interface resistance (<2 × 10−4 Ω m). Moreover, the resistance of nanowires in series with metal interfaces systematically decreases when the temperature is lowered to 1.5 K, revealing an intrinsic metallic behaviour. Triarylamine derivatives in solution have been self-assembled into organic nanowires between two electrodes, under white-light irradiation and in the presence of a voltage. The resulting fibres possess a very high electric conductivity as well as a metallic behaviour when cooled down to a temperature of 1.5 K.

Cite this article

Faramarzi, V., Niess, F., Moulin, E. et al. Light-triggered self-construction of supramolecular organic nanowires as metallic interconnects. Nature Chem 4, 485–490 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1332

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