Département de chimie moléculaire

By employing a mech. controllable break junction technique, we have realized an ideal single mol. linear actuator based on dithienylethene (DTE) based mol. architecture, which undergoes reversible photothermal isomerization when subjected to UV irradiation under ambient conditions. As a result, open form (compressed, UV OFF) and closed form (elongated, UV ON) of dithienylethene-based mol. junctions are achieved. Interestingly, the mech. actuation is achieved without changing the conductance of the mol. junction around the Fermi level over several cycles, which is an essential property required for an ideal single mol. actuator. Our study demonstrates a unique example of achieving a perfect balance between tunneling width and barrier height change upon photothermal isomerization, resulting in no change in conductance but a change in the mol. length, which results in mech. actuation at the single mol. level.