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Single-electron transport in a molecular Hubbard dimer

Many-body electron interactions are at the heart of chemistry and solid-state physics. Understanding these interactions is crucial for the development of molecular-scale quantum and nanoelectronic devices. Here, we investigate single-electron tunneling through an edge-fused porphyrin oligomer and demonstrate that its transport behavior is well described by the Hubbard dimer model. This allows us to study the role of electron-electron interactions in the transport setting. In particular, we empirically determine the molecule's on-site and inter-site electron-electron repulsion energies, which are in good agreement with density functional calculations, and establish the molecular electronic structure within various charge states. The gate-dependent rectification behavior is used to further confirm the selection rules and state degeneracies resulting from the Hubbard model. We therefore demonstrate that current flow through the molecule is governed by a non-trivial set of vibrationally coupled electronic transitions between various many-body states, and experimentally confirm the importance of electron-electron interactions in single-molecule devices.