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WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 (PTI) — Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory report that they can spin individual molecules with precision, which could lead to new technologies such as microelectronics, quantum computing, and more.
The key ingredient is monatomic europium, a rare earth element. It sits at the center of a complex of different atoms and offers the molecule many potential applications, it said.
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“Our main mission is to understand at the atomic level the properties of rare earths, which are key materials for U.S. industry,” said physicist Saw Wai Hla of the Center for Nanomaterials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science user facility. At Argonne University, and a professor of physics at Ohio University.
The term “rare earth” is deceptive. Rare earth elements are not exactly rare, but are used in key materials in many electronic devices, such as cell phones, computer hard drives, solar panels and flat-screen displays.
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“We were able to rotate this europium complex 60 or 120 degrees to the right or to the left,” Hla said. “The ability to control the movement of rare earth complexes like this could impact a wide range of technologies.”
According to the study, the ability to spin such europium molecules on demand could extend their application to next-generation microelectronics, quantum computers and more, which consume relatively low power.
Rare earths readily combine with other elements in the Earth’s crust. Therefore, producing pure rare earths for use in devices is difficult and expensive. Collecting them from waste containing rare earths is also expensive. The team’s europium complex would reduce the amount of rare earth needed for a particular device and be much less expensive to mass produce, the study said.
The key components of the complex are a positively charged europium atom and two negatively charged small molecules. The europium atom is at the center of the complex, while one of the small molecules is on the side and the other is at the bottom, the study said.
According to the study, these negative and positive charges hold the components together without the need for chemical bonds, as opposites attract. Small molecules at the bottom anchor the complex to the gold sheet. The sheet acts like a table to hold the whole complex in one place, just like you need a flat solid surface to rotate the bottle on.
“Normally, if you attach a composite like ours with positive and negative charges to a metal plate, the charge dissipates,” Hla said. “So, when that didn’t happen here, we were excited. Our calculations showed that the atoms in the complex surrounding the europium atoms acted as insulators, preventing the charge from dissipating into the gold flake.”
Together, the two negatively charged molecules in the complex function as the control unit. To excite the rotation, the team applied electrical energy to specific points on the complex through the tip of an instrument called a scanning tunneling microscope. The probe not only controls rotation, but also visualizes the complex for study, according to the study.
In temperatures of 100 Kelvin (minus 208 degrees Fahrenheit), the team’s complex is constantly spinning. When they lowered the temperature to an ultracool 5 K, the rotation stopped. Applying electrical energy initiates the required 60 or 120 degree rotation, either clockwise or counterclockwise depending on the direction of the electric field.
“Developing, fabricating and testing this nanoscale complex would not have been possible without the unique instrumentation in CNM,” Hla noted.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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