The new molecular electric motor is born in Massachusetts. 60 times smaller than a hair, it will be useful for medical equipment
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himOf course downsizing: here it is appropriate to talk about ... nanosizing. The future will be invisible to the human eye. The result is already there, it is the electric motor smallest in the world. Result of the development of Nanotechnology, for once not the prerogative of Japan, but from the "old" America, these days there Tufts University Massachusetts School of Arts and Sciences unveiled the latest (in chronological order) product of miniaturization: the molecular electric motor.
Basically, it is an entire engine enclosed in a single molecule. The dimensions? Ready: 60 thousand times smaller than a hair. Or, if we want, one nanometer. Again: compared to the so far smallest electric motor in the world, its dimensions are 200 times less.
This miracle of technology was accomplished by a group of researchers from the Chemistry Department of Tufts University, led by Charles Sykes: thanks to the use of a scanning microscope tunnel effect, a particular molecule of methyl - butyl sulfide: once placed on a copper surface and put in contact with a base of sulfur and carbon and hydrogen atoms, it was excited with the "tip" of the microscope itself. A non-random movement, produced - according to the researchers - by the two "arms" (4 carbon atoms on one side, 1 carbon atom on the other) which performed the function of gears: a rotation of the molecule, to be precise.
And here, as well as in the "dimensions", lies the particularity of this discovery: molecular motors are not new. So far, however, they have always been activated by chemical reactions or by the action of luck.
Obviously, it is too early to think of a practical application for this molecular electric motor. Researchers at Tufts University are of the opinion that a possible use can be identified in medical equipment equipped with probes and very thin tubes for tests and detections, or in electromechanical devices in the nanometer scale.
For the immediate future, the experimentation will continue. L'obiettivo is to observe how many rotations can occur based on the electrical excitation time of the molecule, test other types of molecules, study the possibility of forming chains and find a way to attach them to surfaces.
Piergiorgio Pescarolo
