Dipolar field microscopy

In terms of beam delivery, the DLW method is based on optical microscopy, confocal microscopy [4,6,13] and laser tweezers [14] (for reviews on laser tweezers see [ 15,16]). These techniques allow for a high spatial 3D resolution of a tightly focused laser beam with optical exposure of micrometric-sized volumes via linear and nonlinear absorption. In addition, mechanical and thermal forces can be exerted upon objects as small as 10 nm molecular dipolar alignment can be controlled by polarization of light in volumes of with submicrometric cross-sections. This circumstance widens the field of applications for laser nano- and microfabrication in liquid and solid materials [17-22]. 

Nonpolar and dipolar altitudinal rotors (compounds 2 and 3 in Fig. 17.3) have been synthesized. 19F NMR spectroscopy showed that the barrier to rotation in 3 was extremely low in solution. Both systems have then been immobilized on Au(l 11) surfaces and studied with a variety of techniques.57 The results obtained indicated that for a fraction of molecules the static electric field from the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip could induce an orientation change in the dipolar rotor but not in the nonpolar analog (for a recent example of an azimuthal molecular rotor controlled by the STM tip, see Reference 58). Compound 3 can exist as three pairs of helical enantiomers because of the propeller-like conformation of the tetra-arylcyclobutadienes. For at least one out of the three diastereomers, an asymmetric potential energy surface can be predicted by molecular dynamics simulations on application of an alternating electric field.55... 

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