Synthetic molecular motors & machines

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The widespread use of molecular-level motion in key natural processes sum that great rewards could cone from bridging the gap between the present generation of synthetic molecular systems - which by and large rely upon electronic and chemical effects to carry out their functions - and the machines of the macroscopic world, which utilize the synchronized movements of smaller parts to perform particular tasks. In recent years it has proved possible to design synthetic molecular systems where positional changes of submolecular components occur by moving energetically downhill but many questions in this field retrain unanswered: How do we extrapolate the effects of mechanical molecular level motion to the outside world? What are the structural features necessary for molecules to use directional displacement to do work? How can we make a synthetic molecular machine that pumps ions against a gradient or moves itself energetically uphill along a track? Artificial compounds that can do these things have yet to be realized: the field of synthetic molecular machines is still very much in its infancy and only the most basic systems - mechanical switches and slightly more sophisticated, but still rudimentary, molecular rotors - have been made thus far. This proposal seeks to address These fundamental questions by examining how to control various facets of molecular level motion.