Single polymer chains as molecular wires

Friday, February 27, 2009 - 14:21 in Physics & Chemistry

The research team of Leonhard Grill at Freie Universität Berlin - in collaboration with the synthetic chemistry group of Stefan Hecht from Humboldt University of Berlin and the theoretical physics group of Christian Joachim of the CEMES-CNRS institute in Toulouse - has succeeded in lifting single polymers from a gold surface, similar to chains, and in measuring their electrical and mechanical properties during this process. The scientists place one end of a polymer strand in contact with a metallic tip, thereby inducing an electrical current through single molecular wires over extraordinarily long distances during the pulling process. The results were published in the most recent issue of Science.

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