Nobel Prize “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”.
Ben Feringa was born in Barger-Compascuum (the Netherlands) in 1951, where his family had a farm. He studied at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), where he received his PhD in 1978. After a few years at the Shell oil company he has been affiliated since 1984 to the University of Groningen, where he is full professor in chemistry.
He is a pioneer in the design and synthesis of molecular machines, that is molecules which can act as nanosized machines. These nanomachines were well known in biological systems, but it was a true challenge to build them artificially. Prof. Feringa demonstrated this can be done by chemical synthesis in solution, by connecting atoms and molecular fragments together.
His work on the development of unidirectional molecular motors, which are one millionth of a millimeter in size, is considered as the ground-work for the progress of molecular nanotechnology. He has shown that these molecular motors can function while connected to a surface and the motion can be used to move macroscopic objects. He also designed a “nanocar”, that is, a nanosized compound that contains four motor-based wheels and was shown to move on a surface upon subjection to an external stimulus.
