nl5b01908_si_002.mpg (6.04 MB)
Current-Driven Supramolecular Motor with In Situ Surface Chiral Directionality Switching
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posted on 2015-07-08, 00:00 authored by Puneet Mishra, Jonathan P. Hill, Saranyan Vijayaraghavan, Wim Van Rossom, Shunsuke Yoshizawa, Maricarmen Grisolia, Jorge Echeverria, Teruo Ono, Katsuhiko Ariga, Tomonobu Nakayama, Christian Joachim, Takashi UchihashiSurface-supported molecular motors
are nanomechanical devices of particular interest in terms of future
nanoscale applications. However, the molecular motors realized so
far consist of covalently bonded groups that cannot be reconfigured
without undergoing a chemical reaction. Here we demonstrate that a
platinum-porphyrin-based supramolecularly assembled dimer supported
on a Au(111) surface can be rotated with high directionality using
the tunneling current of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Rotational
direction of this molecular motor is determined solely by the surface
chirality of the dimer, and most importantly, the chirality can be
inverted in situ through a process involving an intradimer rearrangement.
Our result opens the way for the construction of complex molecular
machines on a surface to mimic at a smaller scale versatile biological
supramolecular motors.