Oral Presentation Royal Australian Chemical Institute National Congress 2026

Charge Transport through Linear Carbon Atomic Chains (137062)

Jarred Potter 1 , James M. F. Morris 2 , Elena Gorenskaia 1 , Tom R. Abram 2 , Masnun Naher 1 , Chiara E. Spano 2 3 , Eloise L. Dixon 1 , Amit Sil 2 , Elodie Rousset 1 , Simon J. Higgins 2 , Richard J. Nichols 2 , Paul J. Low 1 , Andrea Vezzoli 2
  1. School of Molecular Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia
  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom
  3. Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Piedmont, Italy

Carbon allotropes have been a rich area of study over the last century.[1] From the sp3 allotrope diamond to the surge of sp2 allotropes, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene, the study of the structure and properties of carbon allotropes have been a pillar for advancements in both chemistry and physics. Despite these major advancements, studies involving the incorporation of sp carbon allotropes remain limited. The all sp carbon allotrope, carbyne, constitutes a pure, linear chain of carbon atoms which can be described by either a polyynic (alternating triple and single bonds) or cumulenic (all double bonds) structure. Given the promise of an idealised carbon wire, carbyne‑type compounds have been a fruitful area of study in molecular electronics, however, have been limited by the incorporation of terminal aryl moieties which ‘lock’ the internal carbon chain into either polyynic or cumulenic forms.[2,3] The investigation of directly bound (chemisorbed) sp carbon chains would therefore allow a more wholistic perspective of the conductance properties of carbyne. One such way to achieve direct chemisorbed sp carbon contacts involves transmetalation from (trimethylphosphite)gold(I) acetylide precursors,[4] providing precedence for the direct incorporation of sp carbon chains of atomically defined lengths into scanning tunneling microscope break junctions. Herein, this presentation will showcase the synthesis of α,ω‑bis[(trimethylphosphite)gold(I)] polyynes as precursors which have allowed for the unprecedented electrical and structural characterisation of linear atomic carbon chains within Au|Cn|Au (n = 4 – 16) molecular junctions.

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