Thioether molecular rotors show great promise as nanoscale models for exploring the fundamental limits of thermally and electrically driven molecular rotation. By using time-resolved measurements which increase the time resolution of the scanning tunneling microscope we were able to record the dynamics of individual thioether molecular rotors as a function of surface structure, rotor chemistry, thermal energy and electrical excitation. Our results demonstrate that the local surface structure can have a dramatic influence on the energy landscape that the molecular rotors experience. In terms of rotor structure, altering the length of the rotor's alkyl tails allowed the origin of the barrier to rotation to be more fully understood. Finally, time-resolved measurement of electrically excited rotation revealed that vibrational excitation of a C-H bond in the rotor's alkyl tail is an efficient channel with which to excite rotation, and that the excitation is a one-electron process.
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