Controlling the entropy of a single-molecule junction

Kavli Affiliate: Herre Van Der Zant

| First 5 Authors: Eugenia Pyurbeeva, Chunwei Hsu, David Vogel, Christina Wegeberg, Marcel Mayor

| Summary:

Single molecules are nanoscale thermodynamic systems with few degrees of
freedom. Thus, the knowledge of their entropy can reveal the presence of
microscopic electron transfer dynamics, that are difficult to observe
otherwise. Here, we apply thermocurrent spectroscopy to directly measure the
entropy of a single free radical molecule in a magnetic field. Our results
allow us to uncover the presence of a singlet to triplet transition in one of
the redox states of the molecule, not detected by conventional charge transport
measurements. This highlights the power of thermoelectric measurements which
can be used to determine the difference in configurational entropy between the
redox states of a nanoscale system involved in conductance without any prior
assumptions about its structure or microscopic dynamics.

| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Herre Van Der Zant”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=10

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