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Seminar | Nanoscience and Technology

Technomimetic Nanomachines: Molecular Wheels, Vehicles, Rotors, and Motors

NST Seminar

Abstract: Advances in the imaging and manipulation of single molecules by scanning tunneling microscopy has stimulated much interest in the study of technomimetic molecules, molecules designed to imitate macroscopic objects at the molecular level, also transposing the motions that these objects are able to undergo.

I will give an overview of the molecular machines we have studied (triptycene wheels, polyaromatic nanovehicles, ruthenium- and europium-based molecular motor). Our nanovehicle participated in the first Nanocar Race in France last spring.

The ruthenium motor can be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise by selective electron tunneling through different sub-units of the molecule. The europium rotor showed the simultaneous and coordinated rotational switching in a network on very long distances under the electric field induced by the STM tip.