EurekAlert  October 28, 2020 Light-controlled molecular motors can be used to create functional materials, to provide autonomous motion or in systems that can respond on command. An international team of researchers (the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany) designed a rotary motor that is efficiently powered by near-infrared light, through adding an antenna to the motor molecule. Through a covalent bond, the motor molecule was linked to an ‘antenna’, which can absorb two near-infrared photons. The resulting excitation of the antenna is then passed on to the motor part of the molecule. For the system to work, the energy levels of the antenna […]