Measurement of Electron Transfer within a Single Supramolecular Assembly Containing a Biological Molecule.

We report on a method to measure the electron transport of a single molecular assembly by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The STM molecular tip together with a chemically modified substrate was utilized to form an assembly with a single target molecule. This method was successfully applied to a heme peptide to reveal the transport property of a single peptide-containing assembly. The present work opens a way to create functional single molecular devices using biomolecules.