Future electronic components will be vastly different in response to two critical technical drivers; the increasing complexity to make smaller, faster high performance components and the “electronics everywhere” phenomena requiring portable, low power, niche roles of electronic components.  New materials, devices, and architectures are actively being explored to meet these demands.  A common theme among these approaches is the need for fundamental innovations and understanding of electronic processes at interfaces.  I will describe advances made to manipulate and measure organic and molecular interfaces at the nanometer scale and the impact on the resulting electronic performance.  In particular, I will focus on the measurement advances made in molecular electronics, highlighting our understanding of the science and characterization of the critical buried interfaces.  This talk will contain two illustrative case studies demonstrating the impact of interface engineering on charge trapping memory devices and spin-based paradigms.

Organic molecules are advantageous for trapped charge memory devices due to their small size, discrete nature, and tunability.  Moreover, because each molecule can trap one (and sometimes more) charges, they enable very large trapped charge densities.  I will describe a series of advances in creating and characterizing molecular memory devices incorporating a novel ruthenium based redox-active molecule as the charge storage layer.(1)  

Spin-based paradigms are increasingly important for future electronics. Of special interest is the manipulation of spin in organic materials.  I will describe a series of advances that examine the impact of organic monolayers on the ferromagnetic cobalt and cobalt oxide interfaces and the role interface engineering can play in organic spintronics.(2,3)

1.       “Non-volatile memory devices with redox-active diruthenium molecular compound”  S. Pookpanratana, H. Zhu, E. G. Bittle, S. Natoli, T. Ren, D. J. Gundlach, C. A. Richter, Q. Li, and C. A. Hacker J. Phys. Chem.: Condens. Matter, a special issue on “Molecular functionalization of surfaces for device applications” (invited)  Oct 2015 accepted

2.       “Modifying spin injection characteristics of Co/Alq₃ system by using a molecular self-assembled monolayer”,  Hyuk-Jae Jang, J.-S Lee, S. J. Pookpanratana, I. C. Tran, C. A. Hacker, and C. A. Richter, J. Phys. Chem. C 119, 12949 (2015)

3.       “Self-Assembled Monolayers Impact Cobalt Interfacial Structure in NanoElectronic Junctions”  S. Pookpanratana, L. K. Lydecker, C. A. Richter, and C. A. Hacker, J. Phys. Chem. C, 119(12), 6687-6695 (Mar 2105)