{"id":1635,"date":"2011-09-25T20:41:19","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T20:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1635"},"modified":"2011-09-25T20:41:19","modified_gmt":"2011-09-25T20:41:19","slug":"exploring-the-molecular-toolkit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1635","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the molecular toolkit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1636\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1636\" href=\"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?attachment_id=1636\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1636\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1636\" title=\"molecuul_motor_548x439\" src=\"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/wp-content\/uploads\/molecuul_motor_548x439-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1636\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Molecular engine designed by Seldenthuis and Prins. (Illustration: Marijn van der Meer)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Make a nanogap, stick a molecule across and see what it does. Ferry  Prins\u2019 experiments could lead to molecular memories, more efficient  solar cells and the tiniest motor ever.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He is basically a chemist, although he mainly worked with physicists  during his PhD project. Dr Ferry Prins just loves molecules and is  excited that the latest technologies at Applied Sciences allowed him to  almost put his finger onto these tiniest building blocks of chemistry.  What\u2019s more: he did most of his experiments at room temperature.<br \/>\nA  whole lot of tricks are required to get in contact with single  molecules. A 1 to 2 nanometer wide gap for example cannot be made by  lithography. Instead, a current is fed through a thin platinum wire  until it locally \u2018evaporates\u2019 and leaves a nanogap between the  electrodes. Now try to stick a molecule across the gap \u2013 another nasty  hit and miss affair, which requires patience and persistence.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Prins\u2019 patience was rewarded with the discovery of very useful  molecular traits. For example, he reports the discovery of a molecular  switch \u2013 a molecule able to switch between two spin states. Moreover,  the iron-based polymer works at room temperature and its spin state is  externally readable. That sounds like a promising candidate for yet  smaller memory devices.<br \/>\nPrins also used lead-selenide quantumdots as  photodetectors. Resting between two electrodes only 5 nanometers apart,  the quantumdots readily pass on any electrons freed by incident photons.  The electronic efficiency is much higher than in traditional solar  devices, but in the present configuration no external current is  generated. Prins\u2019 successors are busy inventing solutions for that.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, Prins also designed a molecule that can serve as a rotor in a  molecular engine. At two extremes the (flat) molecule has two rings,  which should bind to two gold electrodes. The other two extremes of the  molecules are electrically charged, which makes the molecule sensitive  to the electric fields. Prins, and his colleague Jos Seldenthuis (MSc),  hope to demonstrate that the application of an alternating electric  field to an adjacent electrode will nudge the molecular engine into  rotation.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ferry Prins, &#8216;Molecular functionality in nanoelectronic devices&#8217;,  16 September 2011, PhD supervisor: Professor Herre van der Zant (AS)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Make a nanogap, stick a molecule across and see what it does. Ferry Prins\u2019 experiments could lead to molecular memories, more efficient solar cells and the tiniest motor ever. He is basically a chemist, although he mainly worked with physicists during his PhD project. Dr Ferry Prins just loves molecules and is excited that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[173,297,305],"class_list":["post-1635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-delta","tag-ferry-prins","tag-molecular-science","tag-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}