James Fraser Stoddart
Encyclopedia
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
currently at the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry
Supramolecular chemistry
Supramolecular chemistry refers to the area of chemistry beyond the molecules and focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular subunits or components...
and nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures
Mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures
Mechanically interlocked molecular architectures are connections of molecules not through traditional bonds, but instead as a consequence of their topology. This connection of molecules is analogous to keys on a key chain loop. The keys are not directly connected to the key chain loop but they...
such as molecular Borromean rings
Molecular Borromean rings
Molecular Borromean rings are an example of a mechanically-interlocked molecular architecture in which three macrocycles are interlocked in such a way that breaking any macrocycle allows the others to disassociate. They are the smallest examples of Borromean rings. The synthesis of molecular...
, catenanes and rotaxane
Rotaxane
A rotaxane is a mechanically-interlocked molecular architecture consisting of a "dumbbell shaped molecule" which is threaded through a "macrocycle" . The name is derived from the Latin for wheel and axle...
s utilizing molecular recognition
Molecular recognition
The term molecular recognition refers to the specific interaction between two or more molecules through noncovalent bonding such as hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces, π-π interactions, electrostatic and/or electromagnetic effects...
and molecular self-assembly
Molecular self-assembly
Molecular self-assembly is the process by which molecules adopt a defined arrangement without guidance or management from an outside source. There are two types of self-assembly, intramolecular self-assembly and intermolecular self-assembly...
processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches and as motor-molecules. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems
Nanoelectromechanical systems
Nanoelectromechanical systems are devices integrating electrical and mechanical functionality on the nanoscale. NEMS form the logical next miniaturization step from so-called microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS devices...
(NEMS). His efforts have been recognized by numerous awards including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science.
Biography
Fraser Stoddart was born in EdinburghEdinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland, and received his B.Sc.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
(1964) and Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
(1966) degrees from Edinburgh University. In 1967, he went to Queen’s University (Canada) as a National Research Council
National Research Council of Canada
The National Research Council is an agency of the Government of Canada which conducts scientific research and development.- History :...
Postdoctoral Fellow, and then, in 1970, to Sheffield University as an Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries was a British chemical company, taken over by AkzoNobel, a Dutch conglomerate, one of the largest chemical producers in the world. In its heyday, ICI was the largest manufacturing company in the British Empire, and commonly regarded as a "bellwether of the British...
(ICI) Research Fellow, before joining the academic staff as a Lecturer in Chemistry. He was a Science Research Council Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
(UCLA) in 1978. After spending a sabbatical (1978–81) at the ICI Corporate Laboratory in Runcorn, he returned to Sheffield where he was promoted to a Readership in 1982.
He was awarded a DSc
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
degree by Edinburgh in 1980 for his research into stereochemistry beyond the molecule. In 1990, he moved to the Chair of Organic Chemistry
Organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation of carbon-based compounds, hydrocarbons, and their derivatives...
at Birmingham University and was Head of the School of Chemistry there (1993–97) before moving to UCLA as the Saul Winstein
Saul Winstein
Saul Winstein was the Canadian chemist who discovered the Winstein reaction, in which he argued a non-classical cation was needed to explain the stability of the norbornyl cation. This fueled a debate with Herbert C. Brown over the existence of delocalized cations such as this. Richard F...
Professor of Chemistry in 1997.
In July 2002, he became the Acting Co-Director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). In May 2003, he became the Fred Kavli
Fred Kavli
Fred Kavli is a Norwegian and naturalized American physicist, business leader, inventor, and philanthropist. He was born in the village of Eresfjord, Nesset municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. Today Kavli lives in the city of Santa Barbara, California. He established The Kavli...
Chair of NanoSystems Sciences and served from then through August 2007 as the Director of the CNSI. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in the New Year's Honours December 2006, by Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
.
Research interests
One of his major contributions to the development of mechanically-interlocked molecular architecturesMechanically-interlocked molecular architectures
Mechanically interlocked molecular architectures are connections of molecules not through traditional bonds, but instead as a consequence of their topology. This connection of molecules is analogous to keys on a key chain loop. The keys are not directly connected to the key chain loop but they...
has been the establishment of efficient synthesis of these molecules based on the binding of cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene), such as rotaxane
Rotaxane
A rotaxane is a mechanically-interlocked molecular architecture consisting of a "dumbbell shaped molecule" which is threaded through a "macrocycle" . The name is derived from the Latin for wheel and axle...
s and catenane
Catenane
A catenane is a mechanically-interlocked molecular architecture consisting of two or more interlocked macrocycles. The interlocked rings cannot be separated without breaking the covalent bonds of the macrocycles. Catenane is derived from the Latin catena meaning "chain"...
s. Using dynamic covalent chemistry
Dynamic covalent chemistry
In supramolecular chemistry, dynamic covalent chemistry is a strategy that aims at synthesizing large complex molecules. In it a reversible reaction is under thermodynamic reaction control and a specific reaction product out of many is captured...
his group reported the synthesis of the most advanced mechanically-interlocked molecular architecture called molecular Borromean rings
Molecular Borromean rings
Molecular Borromean rings are an example of a mechanically-interlocked molecular architecture in which three macrocycles are interlocked in such a way that breaking any macrocycle allows the others to disassociate. They are the smallest examples of Borromean rings. The synthesis of molecular...
. The efficient procedures developed to synthesize these molecular architectures has been applied to the construction of molecular machine
Machine
A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...
s that operate based on the movement of the various components with respect to one another. These molecular machines have potential uses as molecular sensor
Molecular sensor
A molecular sensor or chemosensor is a molecule that interacts with an analyte to produce a detectable change. Molecular sensors combine molecular recognition with some form of reporter so the presence of the guest can be observed...
s, actuators, amplifiers, and molecular switch
Molecular switch
A molecular switch is a molecule that can be reversibly shifted between two or more stable states. The molecules may be shifted between the states in response to changes in e.g. pH, light, temperature, an electrical current, microenvironment, or the presence of a ligand. In some cases, a...
es and can be controlled chemically, electrically, and optically.
Stoddart has pioneered the use of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures
Mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures
Mechanically interlocked molecular architectures are connections of molecules not through traditional bonds, but instead as a consequence of their topology. This connection of molecules is analogous to keys on a key chain loop. The keys are not directly connected to the key chain loop but they...
to create nanomechanical systems
Nanomechanics
Nanomechanics is a branch of nanoscience studying fundamental mechanical properties of physical systems at the nanometer scale. Nanomechanics has emerged on the crossroads of classical mechanics, solid-state physics, statistical mechanics, materials science, and quantum chemistry...
. He has demonstrated that such devices can be fabricated using a combination of the bottom-up approach of molecular self-assembly
Molecular self-assembly
Molecular self-assembly is the process by which molecules adopt a defined arrangement without guidance or management from an outside source. There are two types of self-assembly, intramolecular self-assembly and intermolecular self-assembly...
and a top-down approach
Top-down and bottom-up design
Top–down and bottom–up are strategies of information processing and knowledge ordering, mostly involving software, but also other humanistic and scientific theories . In practice, they can be seen as a style of thinking and teaching...
of lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
and microfabrication
Microfabrication
Microfabrication is the term that describes processes of fabrication of miniature structures, of micrometre sizes and smaller. Historically the earliest microfabrication processes were used for integrated circuit fabrication, also known as "semiconductor manufacturing" or "semiconductor device...
.
Presentation style
Stoddart's papers and other material are instantly recognizable because of a distinctive "cartoonCartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
"-style of representation he has developed since the late 1980s. A solid circle is often placed in the middle of the aromatic rings of the molecular structures he has reported, and different colors to highlight different parts of the molecules. Indeed, he was one of the first researchers to make extensive use of color in chemistry publications. The different colors usually correspond to the different parts of a cartoon representation of the molecule, but are also used to represent specific molecular properties (blue, for example, is used to represent electron-poor recognition units
Electron acceptor
An electron acceptor is a chemical entity that accepts electrons transferred to it from another compound. It is an oxidizing agent that, by virtue of its accepting electrons, is itself reduced in the process....
while red is used to represent the corresponding electron-rich recognition units
Electron donor
An electron donor is a chemical entity that donates electrons to another compound. It is a reducing agent that, by virtue of its donating electrons, is itself oxidized in the process....
). Stoddart maintains this standardized color scheme across all of his publications and presentations, and his style has been adopted by other researchers reporting molecular machines based on his syntheses.
ISI ratings
Six of his > 900 publications have been cited 500 or more times, 16 over 300, 82 over 100, and 203 over 50. He has an h-indexH-index
The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications...
of 92. For the period from January 1997 to August 31, 2007, he was ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information
Institute for Scientific Information
The Institute for Scientific Information was founded by Eugene Garfield in 1960. It was acquired by Thomson Scientific & Healthcare in 1992, became known as Thomson ISI and now is part of the Healthcare & Science business of the multi-billion dollar Thomson Reuters Corporation.ISI offered...
as the third most cited chemist with a total of 14,038 citations from 304 papers at a frequency of 46.2 citations per paper. During 35 years, > 260 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers have been trained in his laboratories, and > 60 have subsequently embarked upon independent academic careers. The Institute for Scientific Information
Institute for Scientific Information
The Institute for Scientific Information was founded by Eugene Garfield in 1960. It was acquired by Thomson Scientific & Healthcare in 1992, became known as Thomson ISI and now is part of the Healthcare & Science business of the multi-billion dollar Thomson Reuters Corporation.ISI offered...
(ISI) also predicted that Fraser Stoddart was a likely winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in Chemistry along with George M. Whitesides
George M. Whitesides
George M. Whitesides is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of NMR spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, and nanotechnology...
and Seiji Shinkai
Seiji Shinkai
is a Japanese chemist and Professor of Chemistry at Kyushu University in Japan.- Early life :Shinkai was born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1944. He completed his B.S. in 1967 and Ph.D. in 1972 from Kyushu University.- Academic career :...
for their contributions to molecular self-assembly. However, the Prize eventually went to Robert Grubbs, Richard Schrock and Yves Chauvin
Yves Chauvin
Yves Chauvin is a French chemist and Nobel Prize laureate. He is honorary research director at the Institut français du pétrole and a member of the French Academy of Science. Chauvin received his degree from the Lyon School of Chemistry, Physics and Electronics in 1954.He was awarded the 2005...
.