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Letter

Nature Materials 6, 30–33 (1 January 2007) | doi:10.1038/nmat1802

A rack-and-pinion device at the molecular scale

Franco Chiaravalloti , Leo Gross , Karl-Heinz Rieder , Sladjana M. Stojkovic , Andr|[eacute]| Gourdon , Christian Joachim & Francesca Moresco

Molecular machines, and in particular molecular motors with synthetic molecular structures and fuelled by external light, voltage or chemical conversions, have recently been reported. Most of these experiments are carried out in solution with a large ensemble of molecules and without access to one molecule at a time, a key point for future use of single molecular machines with an atomic scale precision.