|
Thanks to a collaboration between scientists in San Sebastian and Japan, a relay reaction of hydrogen
atoms at a single-molecule level has been observed in real space. This way of
manipulating matter could open up new ways to exchange information between novel
molecular devices in future electronics. Thomas Frederiksen, PhD, presently
working in the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) is one of the
scientists that has participated in this research project. The results have
been published in Nature Materials.
An athletic relay race is a competition where each member of
a team sprints a short distance with the baton before passing it onwards to the
next team member. This collective way of transporting something rapidly along a
well-defined track is not only a human activity and invention—a similar relay
mechanism, often referred to as structural diffusion, exists at the atomic
scale that facilitate transport of hydrogen atoms and protons in hydrogen
bonded networks, such as liquid water, biological systems, functional
compounds, etc. However, direct visualization of this important transfer
process in these situations is extremely difficult because of the highly
complex environments.
Scientists in San Sebastian
and Japan
discovered that the relay reaction also occurs in well-defined molecular chains
assembled on a metal surface. This new setup allowed the researchers to gain
insight into the relay reactions at the level of single atoms and visualize the
process using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). By sending a pulse of
electrons through a water molecule at one end of the chain, hydrogen atoms
propagate one by one along the chain like dominoes in motion.
The result is that a hydrogen atom has been transferred from
one end to the other via the relay mechanism. The demonstrated control of the
atom transfer along these molecular chains not only sheds new insight on a
fundamental problem. It could also open up new ways to exchange information
between novel molecular devices in future electronics by passing around
hydrogen atoms.
