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Letter

Directional Control in Thermally Driven Single-Molecule Nanocars

Supporting Info

Yasuhiro Shirai,^† Andrew J. Osgood,^‡ Yuming Zhao,^† Kevin F. Kelly,*^‡ and James M. Tour*^†

Departments of Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science, Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Rice Quantum Institute, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005

Nano Lett., 2005, 5 (11), pp 2330–2334

DOI: 10.1021/nl051915k

Publication Date (Web): October 13, 2005

†

Departments of Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science and Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

‡

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Rice Quantum Institute.

Corresponding authors. E-mail: tour@rice.edu; kkelly@rice.edu.

Abstract

With the hope of directing future bottom-up fabrication through bulk external stimuli (such as electric fields) on nanometer-sized transporters, we sought to study controlled molecular motion on surfaces through the rational design of surface-capable molecular structures called nanocars. Here we show that the observed movement of the nanocars is a new type of fullerene-based wheel-like rolling motion, not stick−slip or sliding translation, due to evidence including directional preference in both direct and indirect manipulation and studies of related molecular structures.

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