ALIGNMENT-PROJECT · Aligning amphiphilic molecules on a water surface into large two-dimensional (2D) crystals by laser field
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2007-06-01 → 2009-05-31
- EU contribution
- €181,268
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- EIF
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Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - ALIGNMENT-PROJECT (Aligning Amphiphilic Molecules on A Water Surface into Large Two-Dimensional (2D) Crystals by Laser Field)
This project focussed on the following two main objectives: 1. the alignment of amphiphilic molecules on a water surface into large two-dimensional crystals by a laser field and 2. on quantum state selection, alignment and orientation of molecules using static electric and laser fields. Regarding the first objective, this was the research area defined in the original proposal. The main project finding was that large, polymer-like molecules, when spread out on a water surface, could be crystallised in ordered structures in case the surface was irradiated with intense light pulses from powerful laser sources. The studies were carried out on poly benzyl-L-glutamate and peptide alamethicin. The findings could have important influence on facilitating crystallisation of membrane proteins, molecular electronics and self-assembling of nanomaterials. Regarding the second objective, the idea was to select gas-phase molecules in the lowest lying rotational states by means of a strong inhomogeneous static electric field, a so called molecular deflector. Building on ideas that went back to Otto Stern in the 1920s a molecular deflector was constructed through the collaboration of our group at Aarhus University and a group at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin. The quantum state selected molecules enabled unprecedented orientational control of various molecules using a combination of intense laser pulses and weak static electric fields. The results were anticipated to have profound consequences for x-ray diffraction studies at emerging free-electron laser sources, femtosecond time resolved reaction dynamics and strong field physics phenomena.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The self-assembly method of organizing water-insoluble molecules on water surfaces into Langmuir films is a common way to fabricate ordered monolayers. However, the 2D crystalline films formed on the water are composed of many grains all lying on the same face, but oriented randomly azimuthally into '2D powders'. The crystallites have a diameter that ranges typically between 100-1500Å.Controlling the alignment and size of the growing 2D crystalline grains is the aim of this proposal. Ultimately, this would require grazing incidence X-ray diffraction techniques using synchrotron light and nonlinear optical techniques to detect and characterize the aligned crystalline mono- (or multi-) layers on the liquid surfaces. Due to its interdisciplinary character, the outcome of the project will be relevant to fields in physics, chemistry and biology.From a physics point of view, the development of nonlinear optical methods to induce alignment of molecules on the water surface is a direct continuation to problems in the coherent control domain, which in the field of molecule-alignment has been focused to date in the gas phase. The challenge is in the design of amphiphilic systems that will form aligned 2D crystals via the laser field and their detect ion.The success of the project will allow the preparation of significantly large 2D crystals and so provide a template for addressing questions in 2D-physics, interface physics, and chemistry and biology that occur at organic interfaces. In addition, it will provide new routes for the preparation of functional materials, especially in the nano-scale, which is of central interest in molecular electronics.In addition, it may be possible to fabricate new organic 2 and 3D multilayer crystals employing Langmuir-Blodgett methods. Finally, it may prove possible by this method to form large 2D crystals of membranal proteins that are very difficult to obtain as 3D crystals.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS · AARHUS CCoordinatorDenmark
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union