First-principles study of triangle terarylene as a possible optical molecular switch

Using non-equilibrium Green's function formalism combined with first-principles density functional theory, we investigate the electronic transport properties of a triangle terarylene(open- and closed-ring forms) optical molecular switch. The influence of the HOMO-LUMO gaps and the spatial distributions of molecular orbitals on the quantum transport through the molecular device is discussed. Theoretical results show that the conductance of the closed-ring is 3-8 times larger than that of open-ring, which expect that this system can be one of good candidates for optical switches due to this unique advantage, and may have some potential applications in future molecular circuit.