Issue 10, 2017

Light-driven rotary molecular motors without point chirality: a minimal design

Abstract

A fundamental requirement for achieving photoinduced unidirectional rotary motion about an olefinic bond in a molecular motor is that the potential energy surface of the excited state is asymmetric with respect to clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. In most available light-driven rotary molecular motors, such asymmetry is guaranteed by the presence of a stereocenter. Here, we present non-adiabatic molecular dynamics simulations based on multiconfigurational quantum chemistry to demonstrate that this chiral feature is not essential for inducing unidirectional rotary motion in molecules that incorporate a cyclohexenylidene moiety into a protonated Schiff-base framework. Rather, the simulations show that it is possible to exploit the intrinsic asymmetry of the puckered cyclohexenylidene to control the direction of photoinduced rotation.

Graphical abstract: Light-driven rotary molecular motors without point chirality: a minimal design

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
12 Dec. 2016
Accepted
17 Febr. 2017
First published
20 Febr. 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2017,19, 6952-6956

Light-driven rotary molecular motors without point chirality: a minimal design

J. Wang, B. Oruganti and B. Durbeej, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2017, 19, 6952 DOI: 10.1039/C6CP08484B

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