Objective
High aspect ratio (quasi-1D) nanostructures have potential to revolutionise the way we use, make and study molecules. This ambitious project is designed to enable characterisation and manipulation of molecules at a single-molecule level, visualisation of mechanisms of chemical reactions in real space and time, and synthesis of molecules within nano-sized containers. Understanding interactions of molecules with nanostructures of different types (nanofibres, nanotubes) and different chemical composition (carbon, bron nitride, titanium dioxide) forms a fundamental core of this project, as the 1D nanomaterials will serve as structural and functional bridges between the molecular world and the macro world. This project opens up new broad horizon for molecular disciplines, such as organic chemistry, molecular physics and the science of nanomaterials. Molecules possessing optical (polyaromatic hydrocarbons, complexes of transition metals and lanthanides), magnetic (single-molecule magnets, free radicals) or redox (metallocenes, molecular wires, tetrathiafulvalene) properties wired to 1D nanostructures will be delivered for next generation of electronic devices, harnessing functional properties of individual molecules for a variety of applications ranging from ultrasensors to quantum information processors. This project will help to establish a precise control of geometries and orientations of extended molecular arrays urgently needed for nano-device applications. Understanding of how molecules interact with 1D nanostructures and how they react with each other when confined within nano-reactors will give a new powerful set of tools to control the direction, selectivity and kinetics of chemical reactions. Methodology of molecular confinement at the nanoscale developed in this project will offer new opportunities for preparative synthetic chemistry of the XXI century leading to high-value isomerically and enantiomerically pure products that cannot be synthesised otherwise.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
ERC-2011-StG_20101014
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Funding Scheme
ERC-SG - ERC Starting GrantHost institution
NG7 2RD Nottingham
United Kingdom