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A conducting polymer nanojunction switch.

The recent surge of interest in nanomaterials is driven by not only the need of ever-increasing miniaturization of microelectronics but also the discovery of many novel phenomena that occur on the nanoscale. 1 Conducting polymers are attractive for a variety of applications. 2 Bulk polymer materials are often described as highly conductive nanocrystalline domains separated with less conductive disordered regions. 3 The inhomogeneity has been a serious hindrance for a complete understanding of the materials as well as for many applications. To date, most works have focused on bulk samples, which measure properties averaged out over many nanocrystalline domains and disordered regions. Because nanocystalline domains are as small as a few nanometers, directly probing each individual domains is not a trivial task. In this communication, we report a study of charge transport through a polyaniline nanojunction formed between two nanoelectrodes separated with a gap comparable to the size of a nanocrystalline domain. In sharp contrast to bulk samples whose conductance varies smoothly between insulating and conducting states as a function of the electrochemical potential, the polymer nanojunction switchesabruptly between the two states, in the fashion of a digital switch. The nanojunction can switch much faster with less power than larger junctions, and may be exploited in sensor applications. Wrighton et al. 4 have pioneered a conducting polymer microelectrochemical transistor to measure the electrical properties of polymer materials between two microfabricated electrodes by controlling the electrochemical potential of the electrodes. A crucial task of our experiment is to fabricate a pair of nanoelectrodes with a gap of a few nanometers or less, which is achieved using two methods. The first method 5 starts with a pair of Au nanoelectrodes with a 20 -80 nm gap on an oxidized Si substrate by electron beam lithography. We then further reduce the gap by electrochemically depositing Au onto the nanoelectrodes, using the tunneling current between the nanoelectrodes as feedback. The closest distance between the nanoelectrodes is ∼1 nm, estimated from the tunneling current, and the radius of curvature of each nanoelectrode is between 5 and 15 nm (Figure 1). The second method uses a STM setup, 6 which can produce similar results but is more susceptible to drift. After forming a small gap, we deposit polyaniline onto the nanoelectrodes by sweeping the electrochemical potential between 0.15 and 0.75 V (vs Ag/AgCl) in 30 mM aniline + 0.5 M Na2SO4 (pH 1).7 When the growing polyaniline bridges the gap, the current increases sharply across the gap, which prompts an immediate stop of the deposition process. We then replace the aniline solution with bare supporting electrolyte and study the conductance of the polyaniline nanojunction as a function of electrochemical potential. For relatively large junctions in which polyaniline is sandwiched between two nanoelectrodes separated with 20 -80 nm gap, the current increases smoothly and reaches a maximum near 0.4 V, as the polymer is switched from insulating to conducting states (Figure 2). Although the polymer can be reversibly switched between conducting and insulating states, a large hysteresis is apparent, which has been attributed to structural relaxations. 8