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Quantum objects, such as atoms, spins, and subatomic particles, haveunique physical properties that could be useful for many different applications, ranging from quantum information processing to magnetic resonance imaging. Molecular species also exhibit these quantum properties, and, importantly, these properties are fundamentally tunable by synthetic design, unlike ions isolated in a quadrupolar trap, for example. In this comment, we distill multiple, distinct, scientific efforts into an emergent field that is devoted to designing molecules that mimic the quantum properties of objects like trapped atoms or defects in solids. Mimicry is endemic in inorganic chemistry and featured heavily in the research interests of groups across the world. We describe this new field of using molecular inorganic chemistry to mimic the quantum properties (e.g. the lifetime of spin superpositions, or the resonant frequencies thereof) of other quantum objects as “quantum mimicry.” In this comment, we describe the philosophical design strategies and recent exciting results from the application of these strategies.
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A Swiss Army knife for surface chemistry
To construct complex molecules and molecular devices, tiny, atomic-sized objects must be brought together and connected in a precise way. For better or for worse, this daunting task is still mostly done in a manner likened to putting Lego blocks in a washing machine and hoping that the quintillions of molecules somehow end up assembling themselves into the desired product, either by complete chance or under the guidance of other molecular-sized objects—i.e., catalysts. On page 298 of this issue, Albrecht et al. ( 1 ) show how a single molecule can be transformed into three distinct products depending on the voltage pulses from the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Notably, the three products can be repeatedly interconverted with a high degree of control.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2102579
- PAR ID:
- 10408846
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science
- Volume:
- 377
- Issue:
- 6603
- ISSN:
- 0036-8075
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 261 to 262
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abq2622
