One-way rotation of a molecule-rotor driven by a shot noise

Jorge Echeverria (1) , Serge Monturet (1) , Christian Joachim (1)

1 CEMES-GNS - Groupe NanoSciences

The shot noise of a tunneling current passing through a molecule-motor can sustain a one-way rotation when populating the molecular excited states by tunneling inelastic excitations. We demonstrate that a ratchet-like ground state rotation potential energy curve is not necessary for the rotation to occur. A relative shift in energy difference between the maxima of this ground state and the minima of the excited states is the necessary condition to get to a unidirectional rotation. The rotor speed of rotation and its rotation direction are both controlled by this shift, indicating the necessity of a careful design of both the ground and excited states of the next generation of molecule-motors to be able to generate a motive power at the nanoscale.

Mots clés: Single molecule motor; rotation mechanism; shot noise; excited states

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Jorge Echeverria, Serge Monturet, Christian Joachim. One-way rotation of a molecule-rotor driven by a shot noise. Nanoscale, 2014, 6 (5), pp.2793-2799. ⟨10.1039/c3nr05814j⟩. ⟨hal-01712782⟩