Molecular footballs to change your FIFA World Cup experience!

During the next FIFA World Cup to be held in 2018 in Russia you could be using football-shaped molecules to watch the football, scientists say.
Researchers have developed a new way to assemble individual molecules that could revolutionise the creation of novel materials with numerous potential applications, including emerging technologies such as flexible TVs.
The work focuses on the interactions between molecules and in particular on "amphiphilic" molecules, which contain two distinct parts to them.
Household detergent is a good example of a product that relies on interacting amphiphilic molecules, researchers said.
The new method takes the concept of amphiphilic assembly one step further, and applies it to a completely new set of hydrophobic molecules.

The study was carried out by an international team of researchers led by Dr Martin Hollamby (Keele University, UK) and Dr Takashi Nakanishi (National Institute for Materials Science, Japan).

The team used neutron scattering techniques at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in France to investigate the arrangement of these clusters and showed that hydrophobic amphiphiles can still assemble into extended structures in much the same way as conventional amphiphiles.
One example is a molecule shaped like a football but with a long tail, researchers said.
The amphiphile has been tailor made from 'bucky balls' - football-shaped molecules made up of 60 carbon atoms (C60) which are chemically modified by attaching a much longer 'tail' made up of chains of carbon atoms, as found in a regular soap.

The new detergents resemble "molecular tadpoles". When dissolved in solvents that interact with the tails, these molecules assemble to form a core of C60 spheres and a shell of carbon chains.
"The light elements that makes up these 'molecular tadpoles' are easily located by neutrons," said Dr Isabelle Grillo, at the ILL.
"Moreover, small angle neutron scattering which we use at the ILL allows to characterise the self-assembled systems from the nanometre scale to tenth of micrometres and is perfectly adapted to observe the coming together of the C60 footballs' into these beautiful core structures," Grillo said.
This flexibility is the remarkable thing about the new route towards self-organised structures.

A great variety of different structures can be produced just by making small changes to the chemical structure and the additives (solvent or C60) used.
This level of control over self-assembly in complex molecules such as C60 is unprecedented, researchers said.
An area that could be significantly impacted by this new discovery is the field of 'molecular electronics'.
These carbon-based electronics could provide a cheaper alternative to traditional silicon technology and allow for flexible handheld devices for many functions, including smartphones and tablets for watching TV.