Room‐Temperature Single‐Electron Tunneling in Dendrimer‐Stabilized Gold Nanoparticles Anchored at a Molecular Printboard

Particle in a box: A gold nanoparticle is encapsulated in a fifth-generation guest dendrimer, which binds to a host self-assembled monolayer surface (see figure). The nanoparticle encapsulated in the “molecular box” is a supramolecular junction that exhibits single-electron tunneling at room temperature. STM shows that the junction exhibits Coulomb staircase behavior along with negative differential resistance under ambient conditions, but not in ultrahigh vacuum.