Rectifying behaviour of self assembled porphyrin/fullerene dyads on Au(111)

Here we present an Ultra High Vacuum Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (UHV-STM) and Scanning Tunnelling Spectroscopy (STS) study of self assembled donor-acceptor conjugate dyads, consisting of fulleropyrrolidines and metallo-porphyrins immobilized on gold. The coverage in the fulleropyrrolidine layers was optimized up to obtain isolated protrusions which we identify with isolated dyads since their lateral dimensions are consistent with the fullerene size. The STS study reveals a diode-like asymmetric behaviour of the dyads, different from the surrounding areas. We investigate also the influence of the tunneling conditions on the rectifying ratio which is found to be dependent on the initial set point conditions and to increase by increasing the tip-sample distance.