LONGECITY

Scientists in Singapore have scored a breakthrough in nanotechnology by inventing a molecular gear whose rotation can be deliberately controlled, Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) said on Monday.

Scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) discovered the way to successfully control the rotation of a single-molecule gear with the size of 1.2 nm, which is via the optimization of molecular design, molecular manipulation and surface atomic chemistry.

"This was a breakthrough because before the team's discovery, motions of molecular rotors and gears were random and typically consisted of a mix of rotation and lateral displacement," the A*STAR said in an statement, adding that the scientists solved this scientific conundrum by proving that the rotation of the molecule-gear could be well-controlled.

Christian Joachim, the leading scientist of the research said, "Making a gear the size of a few atoms is one thing, but being able to deliberately control its motions and actions is something else altogether."

"What we've done at IMRE is to create a truly complete working gear that will be the fundamental piece in creating more complex molecular machines that are no bigger than a grain of sand," Joachim added.

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Nano-scale robotics is getting closer and closer. Scientists at A*STAR in Singapore have created a nano-gear that's 1.2 nanometers across, or a few atoms wide. That's ten thousand times smaller than the ones pictured here, next to a dust mite.

The gear is made of carbon compounds and can freely rotate around a central axis. The A*STAR team can control the rotation of the molecular gear using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope. It's the smallest molecular gear yet made, and since its rotation is controlled and not random, scientists are calling it a break-through in nanotechnology.

This first step could lead to limitless possible applications, including complex robots no larger than a grain of sand. Or maybe this is just another step towards the inevitable "gray goo" panic. Either way, this discovery could mean working robots that are only a few molecules across or machines that can travel along strands of DNA in the near future.

A*STAR Scientists Invent The World's Only Controllable Molecule-Gear Of Minuscule Size Of 1.2nm

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Edited by bobscrachy, 16 June 2009 - 06:41 PM.

Fascinating stuff, thanks for posting.

A grain of sand? That's going to hold a hell of a lot of single-molecule gears...

Next we need a four speed tranny with a molecular Hurst shifter. And a (molecular) human skull shift knob.