Meseret Bezabih

Abstract Light-driven rotary molecular motors harness the energy of light for a range of applications. While classical motors depend on both light and heat, a recently developed photon-only motor completes its rotation cycle at room temperature. Despite this breakthrough, the motor is hindered by a lack of rotational directionality, low photoisomerisation quantum efficiency, and inconsistent photoisomerisation rates of its two rotary half-cycles.

Introduction Click to copy section linkSection link copied! For more than a century, chemists have been fascinated by highly strained olefins. (1−3) Bicyclic olefins with a bridgehead C═C bond are highly strained olefins. (4) The strain comes from the distorted geometry of the bridgehead sp2 carbon atom, displaying large deviations from the expected planarity.