Atom and Molecule Manipulation

We are interested in the synthesis, characterization of novel molecules and atomically defined nanostructures using atom manipulation, that is, synthesis with the tip of the microscope. Our research provides atomic scale insights into structure and function of molecules. Future applications include single-electron logic devices and artificial molecular machines.

Our experiments exploit our home built low-temperature combined scanning tunneling microscopes/atomic force microscopes (STM/AFM) as tools to assemble atomically defined structures, manipulate and switch molecules, attach and remove single electron charges at will, and induce chemical reactions, including the synthesis of novel molecules, non-equilibrium structures, and exploration of novel chemical reactions.

We also apply single-molecule identification by AFM for studying natural compounds, samples of extraterrestrial origin, and combustion products.

Projects & funding

This work received partial support from the ERC Synergy Grant MolDAM (ongoing), the EU project SPRING (ongoing) and the ERC Consolidator Grant AMSEL (concluded).

The section below lists selected publications, for a complete list please go here.