Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2021, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (2): 335-336.doi: 10.1007/s40242-021-1094-6

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A Mechanical Single-molecule Potentiometer Based on Foldamer

ZHAO Zhikai, WANG Qingling, XIANG Dong   

  1. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Micro-scale Optical Information Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Optics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, P. R. China
  • Received:2021-03-08 Online:2021-04-01 Published:2021-03-17
  • Contact: XIANG Dong E-mail:xiangdongde@126.com
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.91950116, 11804170) and the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin, China (Nos.19JCZDJC31000, 19JCJQJC60900).

Abstract: Molecular potentiometers that can indicate displacement-conductance relationship and predict the molecular conductance are of significant importance towards the real application of molecule-based devices but rarely developed so far. To this end, Li et al. design a single-molecule potentiometer based on ortho-pentaphenylene derivatives. They demonstrated that these pseudoelastic molecules can be stretched and compressed by the mechanical force of the Au electrode along with a dramatically variable conductance by up to two orders of magnitude, demonstrating the great potential as angstrom-scale single-molecule potentiometers. This work has been published in Nature Communications, 2021.