Light-controlled conductance switching of ordered metal-molecule-metal devices

We demonstrate reversible, light-controlled conductance switching of molecular devices based on photochromic diarylethene molecules. These devices consist of ordered, two-dimensional lattices of gold nanoparticles, in which neighboring particles are bridged by switchable molecules. We independently con&hibar;rm that reversible iso-merization of the diarylethenes employed is at the heart of the room-temperature conductance switching. For this, we take full advantage of the possibility to use optical spectroscopy to follow molecular switching in these samples.