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Contact printed Co/insulator/Co molecular junctions

Background

Growing efforts are being dedicated to organic monolayer junctions that may afford a new generation of electronics devices of far smaller sizes and higher density. Contact printing is one of the most promising alternatives for depositing the top metal electrode without degradation of the underlying self-assembled monolayer (SAM).

Investigation

A large-area metal/SAM/metal junction based on magnetic metal cobalt, created by coupling the techniques of self-assembly and contact printing was reported recently1.

Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) data
Figure 1. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) data

Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) data provided by Rigaku's Ultima IV multipurpose diffraction system avoid an intense signal from the substrate and provide a strong signal from the layers in the films based on the chosen grazing angle (θ). This provides useful information. On the other hand, X-ray reflectivity (XRR) data from the Ultima IV (Figure 2, blue oscillating line) provides information on surface roughness, density and the thickness of each layer once the data has been fit by a model (red line)., such as showing all of the peaks from the top polycrystalline Au layer, as shown in Figure 1.

Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) data
Figure 2. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) data
 

References

1Contact printed Co/insulator/Co molecular junctions, Xiaojuan Fan, David L. Rogow, Claudia H. Swanson, Akhilesh Tripathi, and Scott R. J. Oliver, Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 163114 (2007).