1 DOI: 10.1002/((please add manuscript number)) Article type: Communication From an organometallic monolayer to an organic monolayer covered by metal nanoislands: a simple thermal protocol for the fabrication of the top contact electrode in molecular electronic devices Luz M. Ballesteros, Santiago Martín, Javier Cortés, Santiago Marqués-González, Francesc Pérez-Murano, Richard J. Nichols, Paul J. Low, and Pilar Cea * Dr. L. M. Ballesteros, Dr. S. Martín, J. Cortés, Dr. P. Cea Departamento de Química Física, Facultad de Ciencias Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 50009, Spain Dr. L. M. Ballesteros, J. Cortés, Dr. P. Cea Instituto de Nanociencia de Aragón (INA) Campus Rio Ebro Edificio i+d Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 50018, Spain. Dr. S. Martín Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Aragón (ICMA) Universidad de Zaragoza-CSIC, Zaragoza, 50009, Spain S. Marqués-González, Prof. P. J. Low Department of Chemistry University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE, United Kingdom Prof. F. Pérez-Murano Instituto de Microelectrónica de Barcelona (IMB-CNM, CSIC) Campus UAB, Bellaterra, 08193, Spain Prof. R. J. Nichols Department of Chemistry University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZD, United Kingdom Prof. P. J. Low School of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of Western Australia, Perth, 6009, Australia Dr. P. Cea Laboratorio de Microscopias Avanzadas (LMA), Campus Rio Ebro Edificio i+d Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 50018, Spain E-mail: pilarcea@unizar.es Keywords: Langmuir-Blodgett films; top-contact electrode; molecular junction The continued societal and industrial demand for smaller, quicker, and more efficient electronic devices maintains sufficient economic pressure to drive Moore’s Law based scaling of electronic circuits. However, the intrinsic financial and technological limitations in top- down scaling of conventional solid-state silicon technology [1-2] have begun to demand