Molecular motor turns rotor

Abstract

Gearing up to make even more complex molecular machines, chemists at the University of Groningen have created a molecular motor coupled to a rotor. The motor turns the attached rotor such that the two components’ motions are synchronized, just like that of machines we encounter in everyday life (Science 2017, DOI: 10.1126/science.aam8808). “This is fundamental research about how to control motion at the molecular level and how then to use it to synchronize motion and amplify motion,” says Ben L. Feringa, who led the Groningen team. In a commentary that accompanies the paper, University of Bologna chemists and molecular machine makers Massimo Baroncini and Alberto Credi note that the motor-rotor combo “takes an important step forward toward more complex mechanical functions with artificial nanoscale devices.” The unidirectional motor consists of a fluorenyl unit attached to an indanyl group via a double bond. The system’s naphthyl rotor is covalently attached to