The building blocks are porphyrin molecules on a gold surface. Their edges are studded with substituents that allow blocks to stick together. Depending on the arrangement of these substituents, the porphyrins spontaneously form into the groups or wires that the researchers had in mind, offering a promising route to the rational design of structures with useful electronic or optoelectronic functions.
In an accompanying News and Views article Paul S. Weiss of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, explains how the strategy may be flexibile enough both to build nanofabricated contacts and to provide the platform on which to construct and align more complex structures.
Yokoyama, T., Yokoyama, S., Kamikado, T., Okuno, Y. and Mashiko, S. (2001) Selective assembly on a surface of supramolecular aggregates with controlled size and shape. Nature 413, 619-621.
The author Dr. Takashi Yokoyama may be contacted by e-mail.
Weiss, P.S. (2001) Nanotechnology: Molecules join the assembly line. Nature 413, 585-586.
Nature
11 October 2001
