Schiel Philippe, Maaloum Mounir, Moulin Emilie, Nyrkova Irina, Semenov Alexander, Dattler Damien, Accou Lou-Ann, Christoulaki Anastasia, Buhler Eric, Plamont Rémi, Lehn Jean-Marie, Giuseppone Nicolas
SAMS Research Group, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Institut Charles Sadron UPR 22, Strasbourg, France.
CNRS, Institut Charles Sadron UPR 22, Strasbourg, France.
Nat Nanotechnol. 2025 May 23. doi: 10.1038/s41565-025-01933-0.
Molecular motors can act on their environment through their unique ability to generate non-reciprocal autonomous motions at the nanoscale. Although their operating principles are now understood, artificial molecular motors have yet to demonstrate their general capacity to confer novel properties on (supra)molecular systems and materials. Here we show that amphiphilic light-driven molecular motors can adsorb onto an air‒water interface and form Langmuir monolayers upon compression. By irradiation with ultraviolet light, the surface pressure isotherms of these films reveal a drastic shift toward a smaller molecular area as a consequence of motor activation. We explain this counterintuitive phenomenon by the rotation-induced supramolecular polymerization of amphiphilic motors through a non-thermal annealing process to escape a kinetically trapped amorphous state. The effect is limited by the maximum torque the molecular motor can deliver (~10 pN nm) and leads to the formation of highly organized patterns. This serendipitous discovery highlights the opportunities offered by molecular motors to control supramolecular polymerization for the design of innovative materials.
分子马达能够通过其在纳米尺度上产生非互易自主运动的独特能力作用于周围环境。尽管目前已了解其工作原理，但人工分子马达尚未展现出赋予（超）分子系统和材料新特性的普遍能力。在此，我们展示了两亲性光驱动分子马达能够吸附到气 - 水界面，并在压缩时形成朗缪尔单分子层。通过紫外线照射，这些薄膜的表面压力等温线显示，由于马达激活，曲线急剧向更小的分子面积偏移。我们通过两亲性马达通过非热退火过程进行旋转诱导的超分子聚合来解释这一反常现象，以逃离动力学捕获的无定形状态。该效应受分子马达所能提供的最大扭矩（约10 pN nm）限制，并导致形成高度有序的图案。这一意外发现凸显了分子马达在控制超分子聚合以设计创新材料方面所带来的机遇。
