Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ESiM (Energy Storage in Molecules)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-04-01 al 2023-03-31
The main objective of the ESiM project is to create the scientific basis for a new technology addressing the pressing challenges relating to scalable clean energy storage. The ESiM strategy makes use of the conformational degrees of freedom of organic molecules. This concept circumvents the limits of battery technology which is based on ions flow and on environmentally harmful substances.
During the first reporting period ESiM synthetized the first molecular rotors and switches and started to develop numerical and theoretical tools to explore energy storage in molecules and design molecular rotors with the needed properties. Low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy experiments on single molecules and 2D networks have been performed.
Experiments on single molecules started with the investigation of a DMNI-P single-molecule rotor on the Au(111) surface, which is able to rotate in one direction by inelastic tunneling electronic excitations. A statistical analysis of the rotational rate depending on the applied bias voltages allowed us to determine the involved vibrational modes. The behavior by thermal excitations was investigated too.