Parallel Fabrication of Self‐Assembled Nanogaps for Molecular Electronic Devices

Abstract Single molecule electronics might be a way to add additional function to nanoscale devices and continue miniaturization beyond current state of the art. Here, a combined top‐down and bottom‐up strategy is employed to assemble single molecules onto prefabricated electrodes. Protodevices, which are self‐assembled nanogaps composed by two gold nanoparticles linked by a single or a few molecules, are guided onto top‐down prefabricated nanosized nickel electrodes with sandwiched palladium layers. It is shown that an optimized geometry of multilayered metallic (top‐down) electrodes facilitates the assembly of (bottom‐up) nanostructures by surface charge interactions. Moreover, such assembly process results in an electrode–nanoparticle interface free from linking molecules that enable electrical measurements to probe electron transport properties of the nanoparticle–molecule–nanoparticle protodevices.