Synthesis, Fluorescence Imaging and Tracking of Inherently Fluorescent Single-Molecule Nanocars

在这项由化学系高分子、超分子和纳米化学计划资助的项目中，威廉·马什·赖斯大学的詹姆斯·图尔、斯蒂芬·林克和安吉尔·马蒂将开发和研究在表面上表现出受控运动的分子--纳米车。方法是合成在其框架内包含荧光部分的“纳米卡”，并继续扩大可用于构建这些分子的分子部分的曲目。PI还将把分子实体合并到表现出光子驱动旋转的“纳米车”中，并可能作为分子的推进机制。最后，PIS将开发光学显微镜方法来跟踪和表征单个分子的平移运动，并利用这些方法来测量碰撞频率和扩散系数等量。更广泛的影响包括培养本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员。此外，PIS计划开发针对中学生的非正式科学学习方法。中学科学课程书中章节中的主要原则将被翻译成要点，开发成舞蹈歌曲(在专业人员的帮助下)，然后添加到开源的Step Mania和Jam软件包中。这项工作将加强我们对控制单个分子在表面上运动的基本理解。最终，这样的工作可能会导致分子机器的发展，这种机器可以控制超微小尺寸的化学物质的运输和制造。

In this project funded by the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, James Tour, Stephan Link and Angel Marti of the William Marsh Rice University will develop and study molecules that exhibit controlled motion on a surface, "nanocars". The approach is to synthesize "nanocars" that incorporate fluorescent moieties within their frameworks and to continue expanding the repertoire of molecular parts that can be used to build these molecules. The PIs will also incorporate molecular entities into the "nanocars" that exhibit photon driven rotation and may acts as a propulsion mechanism for the molecules. Finally, the PIs will develop optical microscopy methods for tracking and characterizing the translation motion of the individual molecules and to utilize these methods to measure quantities such as collision frequencies and diffusion coefficients. The broader impacts involve training undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Additionally, the PIs plan to develop informal science learning approaches aimed at middle school students. Major principles in book chapters from middle school science curricula will be translated into bullet points, developed into dance songs (with professional help) and then added to open source Step Mania and Jamming software packages. This work will enhance our fundamental understanding about controlling individual molecular movement across a surface. Ultimately, such work could lead to the development of molecular machines that could control chemical transport and fabrication at ultrasmall dimensions.