Selective Conduction of Organic Molecules via Free-Standing Graphene

A race is held between 10 species of organic gas molecules on a graphene substrate driven by thermal gradients via molecular dynamics. Fast conduction of the molecules is observed with selectivity for aromatic compounds. This selectivity stems from the fact that the planar structure of the aromatic molecule helps in maintaining a shorter distance to the substrate, which is the key to the driving force at the gas–solid interface. The drift velocity monotonically increases with decreasing molecular density, with no accelerating transport observable even for a single molecule. A nonlinear regime is discovered for the conduction of benzene molecules under large thermal gradients. At low temperature, molecules aggregated and moved collectively along a specific path in the graphene substrate.