The nano-propeller
When you work with single molecules, things get seriously small. So much so that a 1-nanometre-long molecule has won the Guinness world record for the tiniest electric motor ever.
The micromotor is the first to show controlled, electrically driven motion – essential for a device to be classed as a motor – in a single molecule. Previous atomic-scale engines have used energy from light and chemical reactions.
To make the motor go, at Tufts University in Boston and colleagues anchored an asymmetrical propeller-like molecule – a sulphur atom sandwiched between one carbon atom and a four-carbon chain – to a copper sheet.
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Above the molecule, they placed a metal needle a few atoms wide at its tip. When the researchers sent a current from this tip through the molecule to the conductive copper below, the molecule converted the electrical energy into rotational energy.
Tiny motors could be used in “lab-on-a-chip” devices to power tasks such as pushing fluid through tiny channels.
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