Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Empa involved

Empa is delighted to acknowledge the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 to Bernard L. Feringa, Fraser Stoddart and Jean-Pierre Sauvage - as it made a major contribution in 2011 to a research project carried out by Bernard L. Feringa. Karl-Heinz Ernst, head of the Empa research group 'Molecular Surface Science', used a scanning tunneling microscope to get a model car to move that is comprised of a single molecule - making it probably the world's smallest electric car. The nano car, developed by Empa-scientists Karl-Heinz Ernst and Manfred Parschau together with Feringa and his working group at the University of Groningen, is 4 x 2 nanometers in size - around one billion times smaller than a VW Golf - and travels on four electrically driven wheels in an almost straight line over a copper surface. The 'prototype' made it to the cover of the renowned science magazine 'Nature' in 2011. Unfortunately, the world's smallest electric car doesn't have a very big range: It needs to be refuelled with electricity after every half revolution of the wheels. Refuelling takes place via the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. Due to their molecular design, the wheels can only turn in one direction.