New paper in Science Advances

18 05 2025

Check out our new paper in Science Advances, co-authored by Dr. Wojciech Danowski in collaboration with Dr. Joanna Jankowska from our faculty.

Unidirectional molecular rotary motor with remotely switchable rotation direction
Sci. Adv., 2025, 11, eadt8008, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt8008

Light-driven rotary motors convert light energy into nanoscale rotary motion, enabling diverse applications in molecular engineering. A key determinant of their unidirectional rotation is chirality, which is difficult to alter postsynthetically. Here, we present a novel motor design—E-motor—whose rotation direction can be switched remotely using an electric field pulse, eliminating the need for tedious 8chemical modification. Using quantum chemical calculations and nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate this concept in a system, where axial chirality of a polar switching can be controlled by the external electric field. Crucially, the system retains all essential photophysical features of a molecular motor, and its chirality remains stable during operation in the absence of the external field.