SAN FRANCISCO—An international team of researchers reported designing a multi-component molecular motor that can be moved clockwise and counterclockwise, a breakthrough they say could help pave the way for nanoscale devices that can be used for everything from powering quantum computers to sweeping away blood clots in arteries.
The team of scientists, led by Saw Wai Hlam a professor of physics and astronomy at Ohio University, claims its invention is the first stand-alone molecular motor with multiple parts. The results of the group's study were recently published in the journal
Nature Nanotechnology. The scientists demonstrated that they could control the motion of the motor with energy generated by electrons from a scanning tunneling microscope tip. The motor is about 2 nanometers in length and 1 nanometer high, and was constructed on a gold crystal surface, according to the study.
This illustration shows the structure of the molecular motors.
Credit: Saw-Wai Hla