First-principles study of the switching characteristics of the 15,16-dinitrile DDP/CPD-based optical molecular switch with carbon nanotube electrodes

We have studied the switching characteristics of an optical molecular switch based on the 15,16-dinitrile dihydropyrene/cyclophanediene (DDP/CPD) molecule with two single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) electrodes using first-principles transport calculations. It is shown that the DDP shows an overall higher conductance than the CPD at low bias which is independently of the SWCNT chirality. Meantime, the conductance of the molecular switch can be tuned by the chirality of the SWCNT.