Printing Designer Molecules
18 June 2008, 10:54
Categories: molecular-machines--devices molecular-manufacturing
According to UK researchers at Lancaster University, a carbon nanotube that spins like a wind turbine in a breeze, could become a new type of molecular motor and the world’s smallest printer. The design is simple. A carbon nanotube 10 nanometres long and 1 nm wide is suspended between two others, with its ends nested inside them to form a rotating joint. When a direct current is passed along the tubes, the central nanotube spins around.
The Lancaster researchers say their motor could be used to pump atoms and molecules through the spinning tube in the middle. Multiple pumps could precisely control a chemical reaction, driving atoms in a pattern to engineer new molecules. “It’s like a nanoscale inkjet printer,” says Colin Lambert, one of the Lancaster researchers involved in the work.
Posted by: The Editors
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