Related papers: A Nanocar and Rotor in One Molecule
The generation of unidirectional motion has been a long-standing challenge in engineering of molecular motors and, more generally, machines. A molecular motor is characterized by a set of low energy states that differ in their…
Flow-driven rotary motors drive functional processes in human society such as windmills and water wheels. Although examples of such rotary motors also feature prominently in cell biology, their synthetic construction at the nanoscale has…
A key step towards building single molecule machines is to control the rotation of molecules and nanostructures step by step on a surface. Here, we used the tunneling electrons coming from the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope to…
We examine the dynamics of biological nanomotors within a simple model of a rotor having three ion-binding sites. It is shown that in the presence of an external dc electric field in the plane of the rotor, the loading of the ion from the…
Many types of molecular motors have been proposed and synthesized in recent years, displaying different kinds of motion, and fueled by different driving forces such as light, heat, or chemical reactions. We propose a new type of molecular…
Exploring the limits of the microscopic reversibility principle, we investigated the interplay between thermal and electron tunneling excitations for the unidirectional rotation of a molecule-rotor on the Au(111) surface. We identified a…
Torque is ubiquitous in many molecular systems, including collisions, chemical reactions, vibrations, electronic excitations and especially rotor molecules. We present a straightforward theoretical method based on forces acting on atoms and…
The ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules using a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) has been crucial for the development of a vast array of atomic scale devices and structures ranging from nanoscale motors and switches to…
The control of ultrafast molecular rotational motion has benefited from the development of innovative techniques in strong-field laser physics. Here, we theoretically demonstrate a novel type of coherent control by inducing rotation of an…
A new molecular motor is conceptually constructed from a double-walled carbon nanotube (DWNT) consisting of a long inner single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) and a short outer SWNT with different chirality. The interaction between inner and…
We introduce a new scheme for controlling the sense of molecular rotation. By varying the polarization and the delay between two ultrashort laser pulses, we induce unidirectional molecular rotation, thereby forcing the molecules to rotate…
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…
A molecular rotor mechanism is proposed to explain weak magnetic field effects in biology. Despite being nanoscale (1 nm), this rotor exhibits quantum superposition and interference. Analytical modeling shows its quantum dynamics are highly…
Biological motors are marvels of nature that inspire creation of their synthetic counterparts with comparable nanoscale dimensions, high efficiency and diverse functions. Molecular motors have been synthesized, but obtaining nanomotors…
A class of bistable "stator-rotor" molecules is proposed, where a stationary bridge (stator) connects the two electrodes and facilitates electron transport between them. The rotor part, which has a large dipole moment, is attached to an…
Biological functions in each animal cell depend on coordinated operations of a wide variety of molecular motors. Some of the these motors transport cargo to their respective destinations whereas some others are mobile workshops which…
Following excitation by a strong ultra-short laser pulse, molecules develop coordinated rotational motion, exhibiting transient alignment along the direction of the laser electric field, followed by periodic full and fractional revivals…
Extremely fast rotating molecules carrying significantly more energy in their rotation than in any other degree of freedom are known as "super rotors". It has been speculated that super rotors may exhibit a number of unique properties.…
We consider a diatomic molecule driven by a linearly polarized laser pulse with a polarization axis rotating with a constant acceleration. This setup is referred to as optical centrifuge, and it is known to lead to high-angular momenta for…
Planar rotors can be realized by confining molecular ions or charged nanoparticles together with atomic ions in a Paul trap. We study the case of molecular ions or charged nanoparticles that have an electric dipole moment which couples to…