Materials Science Colloquia November 2025

Single-Molecule Machines on a Surface

Abstract of the Seminar:

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) at low temperatures is a unique experimental technique for controlling the motion of a single molecule on a surface [1], testing the boundary between classical and quantum movement and making thermodynamics at the scale of a single molecule accessible to experimental investigation.

Under the STM, inelastic tunneling electrons or local electric fields can produce controlled rotations or translations, while thermal excitation can modify the energy barrier for motion. In this talk, we will discuss the controlled rotation and translation of asymmetric and chiral model structures adsorbed on the Au(111) surface [2-4] and their potential applications in mechanics and energy storage.

[1] Single Molecule Mechanics on a Surface: Gears, Motors and Nanocars, Eds. F. Moresco and C. Joachim, Advances in Atom and Single Molecule Machines Series, Springer 2023

[2] J K. H. Au-Yeung, S. Sarkar, T. Kühne, O. Aiboudi, D. A. Ryndyk, R. Robles, N. Lorente, F. Lissel, C. Joachim, F. Moresco. ACS Nano 17, 3128 (2023)

[3] K. H. Au-Yeung, S. Sarkar, T. Kühne, O. Aiboudi, D. A. Ryndyk, R. Robles, F. Lissel, N. Lorente, C. Joachim, F. Moresco, J. Phys. Chem. 127, 16989 (2023)

[4] N. Khera, N. Sun, S. Park, P. Das, K. H. Au-Yeung, S. Sarkar, F. Plate, R. Robles, N. Lorente, F. S.-C. Lissel, F. Moresco, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 64, e202424715 (2025)

About the Speaker: 

Dr. Francesca Moresco - Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) of the Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden), Germany

Francesca Moresco studied Physics at UNIGE and obtained her PhD in 1998 from the University of Hannover, investigating surface plasmons by electron energy loss spectroscopy. From 1999 to 2006, she was research assistant at the Free University of Berlin, where she started her work on the manipulation of atoms and molecules by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Her habitation work was awarded in 2003 by the Karl-Scheel Prize of the German Physical Society in Berlin. After a period working in the semiconductor industry, she joined the Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden) in 2009 as a group leader at the Institute of Materials Science. Since 2017, she has been leading the Single Molecule Machines research group at the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), TU Dresden, focusing on the electronic and mechanical properties of molecules, investigated by STM. She is coordinating European projects on molecular machines on surfaces (H2020 FET Open "Mechanics with Molecules” (MEMO) and presently HORIZON-EIC Pathfinderopen “Energy Storage in Molecules” (ESiM)).