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Molecular Rotors Observed by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

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Abstract

The motion of single molecules plays an important role in nanoscale engineering and holds great potential for bottom-up construction of complex devices at single molecular scale. In this chapter we review the recent progress on molecular rotors. We mainly focus on the motions of molecules at solid surfaces based on the most recent results obtained by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Several approaches to illustrate how the surface-supported molecular motor systems work are discussed. These results demonstrate solid advances in the field of molecular-based nanotechnology.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank S. X. Du, D. X. Shi, L. Gao, X. Lin, Z. H. Cheng, Z. T. Deng, N. Jiang, W. Ji, J. T. Sun, and Y. Y. Zhang for invaluable assistance in experiments and theoretical simulations. Work at IOP was partially supported by the NSFC, MOST, and CAS in China.

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  1. Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Ye-Liang Wang, Qi Liu, Hai-Gang Zhang, Hai-Ming Guo & Hong-Jun Gao

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Correspondence to Hong-Jun Gao .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Sciences, Advanced Materials Research Institute, University of New Orleans, Lakeshore Drive 2000, New Orleans, 70148, Louisiana, USA

    Weilie Zhou

  2. Center for Nanotechnology &, Nanoscience, Georgia Institute of Technology, Ferst Dr. NW. 771, Atlanta, 30332-0245, Georgia, USA

    Zhong Lin Wang

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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC outside the People's Republic of China, Weilie Zhou and Zhong Lin Wang in the People's Republic of China

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Wang, YL., Liu, Q., Zhang, HG., Guo, HM., Gao, HJ. (2011). Molecular Rotors Observed by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. In: Zhou, W., Wang, Z. (eds) Three-Dimensional Nanoarchitectures. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9822-4_11

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