Exploiting molecular machines on surfaces

Nanoscience and nanotechnology are new fields of science and technology that deal with the study and control of matter on the nanometre range. One of their main challenges is the manipulation of single atoms and molecules to build up devices and machines of nanometre size that could accomplish tasks with effects visible in a macroscopic scale. Devices and machines of nanometre size are, in principle, defined by analogy with their macroscopic counterparts. A ‘molecular device’ is an assembly of a discrete number of molecular components designed to achieve a specific function and a ‘molecular machine’ is a particular type of molecular device, in which the component parts can display changes in their relative positions as result of some external stimuli to perform a net task.
In this thesis we studied some examples of synthetic molecules that seem suitable candidates for developing molecular devices, specifically rotaxanes and a dithienylethene-based switch. Rotaxanes are molecular shuttles composed of one or more macrocyclic structures locked onto a linear thread by bulky stoppers placed at both ends. The macrocyclic structure can shuttle along the thread, allowing a translational or positional isomerism, which infers the switching of macroscopic material properties through controlled motion (shuttling) at the molecular level. On the other hand, dithienylethene-based molecules can exist in two stable configurations, the so-called open and closed forms that have very different electronic properties, and it is possible to switch between them by irradiation with light of a particular wavelength. These examples have been extensively studied in solution. However, for most foreseeable nanotechnological applications they have to be integrated in the solid state, to be used as building blocks for the preparation of functional and addressable materials. The approach followed in this thesis is to immobilize them on a surface and study them in the form of monolayers or thin films.

	Title and contents
	Chapter 1
	Chapter 2
	Chapter 3
	Chapter 4
	Chapter 5
	Chapter 6
	Appendix A
	Appendix B
	Appendix C
	Summary
	Samenvatting
	Resumen
	List of publications
	Acknowledgments
	Complete thesis

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