Anchoring molecular rotors by on-surface synthesis

TL;DR

This paper explores methods to anchor molecular rotors on surfaces to enable stable, stepwise rotation, which is crucial for developing molecular machines and understanding molecular motion on surfaces.

Contribution

It introduces and evaluates chemical anchoring strategies for stabilizing molecular rotors on metal surfaces, enhancing control over their rotation.

Findings

Chemical strategies effectively pin molecular rotors.

Tip-induced manipulation reveals rotor mobility.

Anchoring improves stability of molecular rotation.

Abstract

Single molecular rotor is an important component for constructing bot-tom-up molecular mechanical machines and a window for shedding light on complex physical and chemical questions about motions of organic molecules on surfaces. Stability of each component in such a molecular construction site is a crucial prerequisite. To realize a stable stepwise rotation of a molecule by a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope (LT-STM), atomic scale axles is particularly important. An ideal atomic scale axle is expected to balance between anchoring and mobility of rotating a single molecule on a metal surface under external excitations. In this Chapter, several chemical anchoring strategies on how to pin a molecular rotor are tested and discussed. Tip-induced manipulation and motion analysis are used as tools to investigate the properties and functionality of the proposed strategies.