Nano-Wires Created by Spontaneous Molecule

Nano-scientists are always trying to go beyond boundaries, and after managing to 'write' molecular-scale messages on a surface, one molecule at a time, they have now decided that it was time to go even further.

So, to avoid writing one molecule at a time – a process that can be very long, they decided “it is much better if the molecules can be persuaded to gather together and imprint an entire pattern simultaneously, by themselves.”

John Polanyi of the University of Toronto's Department of Chemistry, co-author of the paper, said that “one such pattern is an indefinitely long line, which can then provide the basis for the ultimately thin molecular 'wire' required for nano-circuitry.”

The theory for the experiment was developed by postdoctoral fellow Dr. Wei Ji in the Hong Guo laboratory in the Department of Physics, at McGill University, while the experiments were conducted by Tingbin Lim, a graduate student in the John Polanyi Scanning Tunneling Microscopy laboratory at University of Toronto.

The paper, that will be published on Nature Chemistry this week, describes for the first time, a simple molecule, that every time it chemically reacts with a surface, it sets a welcoming neighboring site at which the next incoming molecule reacts.

According to the scientists, these molecules freely grow durable 'molecular chains', when simply dosed on a surface.

The experiments in Toronto gave scientists a glimpse at the chains, while the theory at McGill explained why the chains spontaneously grew.

These molecular chains are the what the researchers need and want as prototypes of nano-wires.

Polanyi said that “early-on, far-sighted Xerox Research Center Canada (XRCC) recognized this opportunity for imprinting patterns at the molecular scale, thereby persuading Ontario Centers of Excellence (OCE) and the federal Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), through its Strategic Grant program, to fund the bulk of the research costs in our lab.”

“The experiments constituted the doctoral work of a recent PhD student in the Toronto laboratory, Dr. Tingbin Lim an outstanding student who came from Singapore to join our group and now makes his home as a scientist in Canada.”