Mode‐Selective Electrical Excitation of a Molecular Rotor

Batteries not included: The rotation of individual molecular rotors can be driven electrically using electrons from a scanning tunneling microscope tip (see picture). Above the threshold energy of the CH stretch excitation, tunneling electrons are effective at selectively driving rotation, but not translation of the thioether rotors. The ability to rotate individual molecules on command will permit the interrogation of many important effects like rotational energy transfer along 1D molecular chains and rotational orientation switching in ordered arrays.