Soft electrical contacts for conductivity measurements of molecularly modified surfaces

Abstract

A portable conductivity setup, using soft electrical contacts, is proposed to measure the charge transport properties of molecularly modified solid surfaces. The present technique facilitates the conductivity measurements of both single and back-to-back metal-semiconductor junctions formed on soft matter using liquid mercury columns as electrical contacts. The utility of the above setup is demonstrated for back-to-back junctions using bare and chemically modified silicon surfaces with organic molecules belonging to ethynylbenzene (EBZ) series. The measured conductivity is found to be very sensitive to the dipole moment of bonded organic molecules. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.