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Individual Chemical Bond Formed With STM
WillWare writes: "Using a scanning tunneling microscope at the Free University of
Berlin, scientists have for the first time manipulated single
molecules to perform a complete
chemical reaction. (Here are
STM pictures of the reaction happening.) ...the making of C12H10
molecules from C6H5I molecules, normally carried out on a copper
catalyst and using thermal activation, has here been forced to proceed by employing one
molecule at a time at a cryogenic temperature of 20 K. The researchers
believe that new manmade molecules, never before seen in nature, can
be engineered in this way, including the selective detachment or
replacement of parts of larger molecules for individual assembling of
molecular based nano-devices. The official article appears in Physical
Review Letters, 25 Sept." Nanites. That's all I have to say.
It was.