The molecular wagon that stays on track

Single molecules are sent and received accurately over long distances across a surface Ever since the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines,” growing attention has been aimed at connecting and embedding molecular machines into hierarchically more complex systems for sophisticated applications. Such connections would, for example, enable the targeted delivery of molecules over larger distances. An important question that arises in this context is what kind of transporter would do such a job, over what distances, and with what degree of precision. On page 957 of this issue, Civita et al. ( 1 ) found a distinct example of a bromine-terminated terfluorene molecule on a metal surface that can be sent and received deliberately across more than a hundred nanometers with atomic precision.