Compact Car/1,000,000,000

Scientists Build Single-Molecule Car

from Science Blog

Rice University scientists have constructed the world's smallest car - a single molecule "nanocar" that contains a chassis, axles, and four buckyball wheels.

The "nanocar" is described in a research paper that is available online and due to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters.

The nanocar consists of a chassis and axles made of well-defined organic groups with pivoting suspension and freely rotating axles. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. The entire car measures just 3-4 nanometers across, making it slightly wider than a strand of DNA. A human hair, by comparison, is about 80,000 nanometers in diameter.

Other research groups have created nanoscale objects that are shaped like automobiles, but study co-author Kevin F. Kelly, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, said Rice's vehicle is the first that actually functions like a car, rolling on four wheels in a direction perpendicular to its axles.

"It's fairly easy to build nanoscale objects that slide around on a surface," Kelly said. "Proving that we were rolling - not slipping and sliding - was one of the most difficult parts of this project."

The Rice team has already followed up the nanocar work by designing a light-driven nanocar and a nanotruck that's capable of carrying a payload.


Amateurs!