Selective Fermi-Level Pinning: A Design Strategy for Giant Rectification in Molecular Junctions

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Hauptverfasser: Guo, Junnan, Fang, Wenhui, Huang, Jian, Wu, Weikang, Li, Hui, Zhang, Lishu
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Guo, Junnan
Fang, Wenhui
Huang, Jian
Wu, Weikang
Li, Hui
Zhang, Lishu
author_facet Guo, Junnan
Fang, Wenhui
Huang, Jian
Wu, Weikang
Li, Hui
Zhang, Lishu
contents Molecular rectifiers are key functional components of molecular-scale integrated circuits, yet achieving high rectification ratios remains a longstanding challenge due to the intrinsic symmetry of resonant tunneling and the complexity of interfacial energy-level alignment. Here, we propose a rectifier design strategy based on selective Fermi-level pinning that breaks transport symmetry via pinning interactions between molecular frontier orbitals and electrodes. This framework enforces tunneling transport to be predominantly governed by unoccupied molecular orbitals, while substantially suppressing contributions from occupied states, thereby establishing a simplified and highly controllable rectification mechanism. The resulting cyclo[n]carbon-based molecular junctions exhibit giant rectification ratios exceeding 103, while retaining exceptional structural robustness against variations in both donor chain length and carbon ring size. This work reveals the critical role of selective Fermi-level pinning in molecular junctions and provides a general design principle for engineering functional single-molecule electronic devices.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_23370
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Selective Fermi-Level Pinning: A Design Strategy for Giant Rectification in Molecular Junctions
Guo, Junnan
Fang, Wenhui
Huang, Jian
Wu, Weikang
Li, Hui
Zhang, Lishu
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
Quantum Physics
Molecular rectifiers are key functional components of molecular-scale integrated circuits, yet achieving high rectification ratios remains a longstanding challenge due to the intrinsic symmetry of resonant tunneling and the complexity of interfacial energy-level alignment. Here, we propose a rectifier design strategy based on selective Fermi-level pinning that breaks transport symmetry via pinning interactions between molecular frontier orbitals and electrodes. This framework enforces tunneling transport to be predominantly governed by unoccupied molecular orbitals, while substantially suppressing contributions from occupied states, thereby establishing a simplified and highly controllable rectification mechanism. The resulting cyclo[n]carbon-based molecular junctions exhibit giant rectification ratios exceeding 103, while retaining exceptional structural robustness against variations in both donor chain length and carbon ring size. This work reveals the critical role of selective Fermi-level pinning in molecular junctions and provides a general design principle for engineering functional single-molecule electronic devices.
title Selective Fermi-Level Pinning: A Design Strategy for Giant Rectification in Molecular Junctions
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23370