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Updated: May 13, 2026

09:48
Construction and Operation of a Light-driven Gold Nanorod Rotary Motor System
Published on: June 30, 2018
Solar-powered nanomechanical transduction from crystalline molecular rotors
Sven O Sylvester1, Jacqueline M Cole
1Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK.
Advanced Materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
|March 19, 2013
Abstract:
A photoinduced solid-state SO₂ isomerism drives a larger mechanical change (benzene-ring rotation) in a neighbouring ion (i.e., the system acts as a solar-powered molecular transducer). The ring rotation and SO₂ photoisomerisation are observed using in situ X-ray crystallography and are controllable, reproducible, and metastable at low temperatures. This discovery presents a new range of materials for solar-energy-based molecular transduction.

