Fabrication approach for molecular memory arrays

We present an approach to tackle long-standing problems in contacts, thermal damage, pinhole induced short circuits and interconnects in molecular electronic device fabrication and integration. Our approach uses metallic nanowires as top electrodes to connect and interconnect molecular wires assembled on electrode arrays in crossbar architectures. Using this simple and reliable approach, we have revealed intriguing memory effects for several different molecular wires, and demonstrated their applications in molecular memory arrays. Our approach has great potential to be used for fast screening of molecular wire candidates and construction of molecular devices. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.