Abstract
BY CONFINING a single, small organic molecule inside a narrow, single-walled carbon nanotube, scientists in Japan have been able to use transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to follow the molecule's motions with near-atomic resolution ( Science , DOI: io.H26/science.H38690). What we did is like trapping a flying bee in a glass tube to see how the wings move, remarks Eiichi Nakamura, the chemistry professor at the University of Tokyo who led the discovery team supported by the Japan Science & Technology Agency. In a vacuum, small molecules tend to move too fast, he explains, but trapping them in a nanotube slows them down enough to allow close observation. Nakamura and coworkers studied several guest molecules, including ortho-carboranes bearing two adjacent alkyl chains up to 22 carbon atoms long. They vaporized the molecules and allowed them to diffuse into the nanotubes in vacuum. By irradiating the nanotubes with electrons at roughly 2-second intervals, the ...
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