Molecular Recognition and Conductance in Crown Ethers

Chris Liu*, Derek Walter, Daniel Neuhauser, Roi Baer

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

72 Scopus citations

Abstract

Crown ethers have the remarkable property of recognizing and binding specific metal cations in complex mixtures. We propose to combine molecular recognition with molecular electric conductance. The question we address is: can the event of binding a cation be sensed by a change in conductance? Specifically, we study a short molecular wire (MW) containing a crown-6 molecule connected via sulfur atoms to two gold atomic wires acting as metallic leads. Upon binding a cation, the density of states of the system is only slightly affected. This reflects the fact that the cation binding is largely electrostatic in nature and is accompanied by little electronic reorganization. Yet, the cationic binding does significantly lower conductance. We also identify strong interference affecting the conductance. A striking feature is the insensitivity of conductance to the type of ligand with the exception of the proton.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13936-13937
Number of pages2
JournalJournal of the American Chemical Society
Volume125
Issue number46
DOIs
StatePublished - 19 Nov 2003

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Molecular Recognition and Conductance in Crown Ethers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this