Origin and mechanism analysis of asymmetric current fluctuations in single-molecule junctionsElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Molecular synthesis, detailed device characterization and statistics, current-time profile of more single-molecule and control devices, detailed theoretical calculations. See DOI: 10.1039/c8ra08508k

• Main Authors: Gu, Chunhui, Wang, Hao, Sun, Hantao, Liao, Jianhui, Hou, Shimin, Guo, Xuefeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 26.11.2018
• ISSN: 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/c8ra08508k

The measurements of molecular electronic devices usually suffer from serious noise. Although noise hampers the operation of electric circuits in most cases, current fluctuations in single-molecule junctions are essentially related to their intrinsic quantum effects in the process of electron transport. Noise analysis can reveal and understand these processes from the behavior of current fluctuations. Here, in this study we observe and analyze the faint asymmetric current distribution in single-molecule junctions, in which the asymmetric intensity is highly related to the applied biases. The exploration of high-order moments within bias and temperature dependent measurements, in combination with model Hamiltonian calculations, statistically prove that the asymmetric current distribution originates from the inelastic electron tunneling process. Such results demonstrate a potential noise analysis method based on the fine structures of the current distribution rather than the noise power, which has obvious advantages in the investigation of the inelastic electron tunneling process in single-molecule junctions. The asymmetric current noise in a single-molecule device was observed, which is relevant to an inelastic electron transport process.