Tripodal molecular platforms for single molecule electric motors

  • Job Offer:
  • Job Type:

    Master Thesis (m/f)

  • Contact Person: Dr. Lukas Gerhard, INT
    Prof. Dr. Wulf Wulfhekel, INT und PHI
  • While macroscopic motors react to a directed driving force with a directed motion, thermal energy washes over state population in any machines at the nanoscale resulting in brownian motion. Besides the astonishing variety of biological molecular machines, artificial molecular motors are still rare.
    We intend to establish new driving forces for actuating nanoscale devices exploiting the spin angular momentum of an electric current.

    Within the master thesis, suitable molecular complexes will be studied in our low temperature scanning tunneling microscope which allows to accurately approach single molecules.

    The master thesis includes sample preparation, STM experiments, data analysis and a close collaboration with the synthetic chemistry group.

     

    Tetraphenylmethane complexes switching between six different states

    Tetraphenylmethane complexes switching between six different states. The rotation can be induced by the tip of the STM.