An article coauthored by CIQUS researchers Diego Peña, Enrique Guitián and Alejandro Criado, in collaboration with the group of Leo Gross (IBM-Zurich) and scientists from the CNRS at Toulouse is reported in the cover of September 14th issue of Science magazine ("Bond-Order Discrimination by Atomic Force Microscopy").
The paper describes the diferenciation, for the first time, of the individual bond order and lengths of single molecules by means of noncontact atomic force microscopy (AFM) with a carbon monoxide (CO)–functionalized tip. The work, which shows the results of the application of this technique to fullerene (C60) and to two planar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (nanographenes), pushes the exploration of using molecules and atoms at the smallest scale and will be important for studying graphene devices and other systems of interest in nanotechnology.
See report in Xornal da USC, El Correo Gallego and IBM Research.