Context and overall goals:
Molshuttle’s vision is derived from the FET 2D-Ink program, whose basic idea was to provide an easy route for fabricating novel 2D semiconducting materials made from graphene-like materials. The current project covers developmental activities for respective instrumentation with two technical goals: the improvement of a laboratory device dedicated to prepare ultra-clean, thinnest layers from various organic molecules including graphene-like species at ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions, and the design of a tool for conducting transfers to distant analytical devices.
Target group and challenges: The technology platform targets the nanotech and biotech community active in surface and interface science and in structure elucidation of large molecular complexes. Researchers in these areas pursue a bottom-up approach with on-surface synthesis and self-assembly of (bio)organic building blocks in focus. The goal is to design and explore nanoscale architectures characterized by highly-valuable electronic, optical, or magnetic properties. Deep knowledge about these phenomena sets grounds for developing novel powerful, sustainable and resource-efficient electronic devices or materials, besides the molecular understanding of physiologic and pathogenic processes. Typical molecular objects of interest range from small to mid-size energy-converting species and electronic switch and storage candidates which are used in innovative organic applications such as solar-cells, semiconductor components, light emitters, electronic/spintronic entities and quantum computing, up to large functional protein-assemblies, viruses and polymers, where understanding the mechanism of their (self)organization helps to design pinpoint biopharmaceutics and diagnostics.
Ultra-clean and specific, fast and yet gentle coating of surfaces with these functional nanostructures is prerequisite for reliable data. However, this remains a challenge with most established technologies, as long as fragile though very promising organic molecular species are concerned and/or purity is essential. Another important element for success is the opportunity to comprehensively characterize the built objects upon deposition. This requires a structure-preserving transfer of the samples to the various analytical tools downstream such as STM, AFM, XPS and alike.
Solution and project objectives: MolShuttle contributed to overcome the mentioned limitation by two measures: By advancing the demonstrator state of our soft-deposition technology materialized in a more robust and compact device, complemented by a tool for save transfer of the research object to potentially any remote analysis device carrying a suitable interface.
