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Updated: Sep 17, 2025

Atomically Traceable Nanostructure Fabrication
Published on: July 17, 2015
How small can a catenane be, if we consider quantum tunnelling?
Sindy Julieth Rodríguez-Sotelo1, Juan Julian Santoyo-Flores1, Sebastian Kozuch1
1Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 841051, Israel. kozuch@bgu.ac.il.
Abstract:
We explored the kinetic stability of the smallest possible alkane-based catenanes and pseudo-rotaxanes, focusing on their heavy atom quantum tunnelling instability. We found that the "corset effect" exerted by a ten-membered ring renders other rings unstable even under deep cryogenic conditions, where it may be taken as stable if tunnelling is neglected.
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