Motorized Nanostructures from Light-Responsive Molecular Machines – MONA_LISA

The main objective of the MONA_LISA project is to design, to synthetize, and to effectively actuate an entirely new class of mechanically active nanostructures functionalized with light-driven rotary molecular motors and helical propellers. In this challenging and original approach, we will focus on the out-of-equilibrium mechanical properties of these nano-objects in order to understand in details their dynamics upon motor rotation, and to control their changes in size, shape, and directed propulsion behavior.
The project will be achieved by a unique multidisciplinary consortium that consists of a combination of synthetic chemists, experimental physicists, and theoreticians.
The synthesis of the molecular machines will be based on our recent demonstrations that out-of-equilibrium motions of molecular motors can be coupled in collective motions at larger scales, and adapted to the design of rotary propellers actuated in solution or at the surface of various home-made nanoparticles and self-assemblies.
The propulsion and diffusion properties of the self-propelling molecular machines and motorized nanostructures (e.g. Janus nanoparticles, vesicular self-assemblies, surfactant nanodisks) will be fully characterized by using in particular state-of-the-art scattering techniques (light, X-ray, and neutron) and heterodyne dynamic light scattering under UV irradiation allowing to tune and determine the balance between diffusive and ballistic motions.
Based on the experimental data and hydrodynamic models, we will establish the main characteristics of nano-motors and their assemblies including the motor rotation speed, the generated driving force and torque, and their dependences on light intensity, wavelength, temperature, and solvent viscosity. The efficiency of the propellers will be assessed theoretically based on their molecular structure and environmental physical conditions.
In each of the systems studied, we plan to identify the optimal architectures of motors, propellers, and nanoparticles in order to maximize the desired effects like motor-driven locomotion or active out-of-equilibrium diffusion of self-propelling molecular machines.
The impact of the MONA_LISA project will be threefold: 1) to demonstrate that artificial molecular motors can transfer their mechanical work to the nanostructures in which they are integrated; 2) to generate smart nanostructures capable of transient adaptation to their environment; and 3) to achieve the world-smallest propellers to date with potential long-term applications in nanotechnologies and nanomedicine.