Nanocontainers may make memories
1 min read
Researchers at Swiss facility Empa have discovered that metallofullerenes are capable of forming ordered supramolecular structures with different orientations. The researchers believe that, by manipulating these orientations, it might be possible to store and subsequently read out information.
Fullerenes – which contain 60 carbon atoms and look like a football – may also serve as 'nanocontainers' for metallic compounds. These so called metallofullerenes have special electronic properties.
Together with researchers at the University of Zurich, the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Leibniz Institute in Dresden, researchers in Empa''s nanotech@surfaces laboratory have been have been able to show that, when deposited on a surface, metallofullerenes form ordered islands with domains of identically orientated molecules. However, different orientations have been found for endohedral metallic compounds. According to Empa, if an external stimulus could be found to change between different orientations, the basic mechanism for data storage would have been achieved.
The molecules studied by Empa researchers are endohedral metallofullerenes, consisting of a cage of 80 carbon atoms with an embedded trimetal nitride (one nitrogen atom, three metal atoms) unit. The work has focused on dysprosium, an element of the lanthanides group, for which there are few alternative uses.
The researchers produced a single molecule layer of the metallofullerene on a copper substrate. The ordering of the metallofullerene on the substrate was then investigated by means of a scanning tunnelling microscope and through photoelectron diffraction. The experiments showed the embedded metallic compound 'feels' the substrate and takes compatible orientations.
http://www.empa.ch
