Dielectric Properties of Self-assembled Monolayers of Dithiols

Dielectric properties of dithiol self-assemble monolayers (SAMs) under ac electric field were presented. Using a Hg-SAM/SAM-Hg junction, the ac impedances of dithiol SAMs were measured using a sinusoidal perturba- tion of 30 mV (peak-to-peak) with the frequency ranging from 1 Hz to 1 MHz at zero bias. The contributions from dithiol SAMs and solvent interlayers were separated due to their different behaviors at ac impedance. The peak position in the loss spectra (the plot of tg± vs: frequency) moves to low frequency with the increase of chain length of dithiols. Using a correlation of peak position with the chain length, the active energies of 23-39 meV for dithiol SAMs of C6-C10 under an ac electric field were derived.