Dichotomy between Level Broadening and Level Coupling to Electrodes in Large Area EGaIn Molecular Junctions

Abstract

Choosing self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of fluorine terminated oligophenylenes adsorbed on gold as illustration, we show that a single level (molecular orbital, MO) model can excellently reproduce full I-V curves measured for large area junctions fabricated with top EGaIn contact. In addition, this model unravels a surprising dichotomy between MO coupling to electrodes and the MO broadening. Importantly for the coherence of the microscopic description, the latter is found to correlate with the SAM coverage and molecular and pi* orbital tilt angles.