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Molecular Rotators and Dielectric Response
Scope and goals of research project:
The dynamics of molecular motion is a fundamental field of study. We propose to utilize a molecular system designed to have predominantly rotary motion, molecular rotors, in conjunction with well-characterized and controllable ferroelectric surfaces to achieve two goals: first, to probe the fundamental physics of the interactions between dipolar molecular objects and strong electric fields at nanometer length scales by establishing correlations between the rotor dynamics and the field of single-crystal ferroelectrics; and secondly to work towards utilizing these correlations as a tool to probe and characterize nano-patterned ferroelectric substrates and address the ability to pattern molecular assemblies on such substrates.
This collaborative project provides a unique opportunity to correlate the dynamics of this simple molecular object with an electrostatic environment that is known and can be manipulated.
The goals of this research are:
· To correlate rotor response with the in-plane portion of the ferroelectric substrate field using single crystal lithium niobate as a test system.
· To measure the dielectric relaxation of a molecule with low polarizability as a function of the magnitude of the vertical electric field (at the surface of lithium niobate) testing the hypothesis that conformation effects due to the field can be measured via changes to the dielectric relaxation.
· To establish if molecules with greater dipole moments and greater polarizability, such as conjugated structures, can be utilized to measure molecular polarization effects due to the magnitude of the (lithium niobate) vertical field.
· Building upon this fundamental work, to determine the optimal rotor molecule or a series of molecules that could be used as a tool set to measure the magnitude and direction of the effective electric field of the nano-patterned ferroelectric thin films and single crystals, exploiting the innately small size and strong electrostatic sensitivity of the rotor molecules.
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| Figure 1: |
A schematic of three possible interactions between the rotor and the substrate field: coupling between the horizontal components of the field and dipole, polarization of the molecule, and conformation of the molecule.
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