Solid-State Molecular Switches and Machines

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Chemists know how to synthesize nanoscale switches and machines that are comprised of molecules held together by mechanical linkages (i.e. the way that rings are interlocked to make a chain). Indeed, this area of chemistry was the subject of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Profs Sauvage, Stoddart and Feringa. However, these elaborate molecules only function in solution where the molecules are randomly dispersed and their motion incoherent. If these extremely tiny devices could be organized in a predictable and orderly manner, the ideas of creating ultra-dense molecular-based memory or controlling electronic properties of materials at the molecular level would be very much closer to realization. One way to achieve a higher level of molecular organization and coherency would be to organize the soft and dynamic molecular components that undergo motion (e.g. rotation or translation) into the pores of a solid state material. The preparation of such prototype materials and demonstration of their internal dynamics (rotation and translation) in the solid state have recently been achieved by our research group (May 2012, front cover of Nature Chemistry and June 2015, Nature Chemistry). These discoveries provide a roadmap for the organization of molecular switches and molecular machines in solid state materials and is the basis of this research proposal. ******We will continue to develop methodologies for producing this new class of material and we will investigate their properties and potential applications. In particular, (a) ferroelectrics and non-linear optical properties, as these are dependent on ordering and arrangement of molecular components in solids; (b) separation science applications, as it should be possible to fine-tune the molecular interactions inside the pores of the material for molecular sieving and sequestration.******Learning how to organize and operate nanoscale switches in dense material is a crucial step towards making these components part of real-world devices with multiple functions and properties - Richard Feynman's famous concept of “building from the bottom-up” - using molecules as information.