Researcher Develops World's Smallest Car
By Robyn Peterson
I bet you thought the Mini Cooper was small. At four nanometers long and three wide, the Nanocar, developed by researchers at Rice University, takes the cake as the smallest car in the world.
Nanocar Model
"You couldn't build a smaller car," says Jim Tour, professor of chemistry and leader of the Rice University research team. The Nanocar is built of a single molecule, and it's impossible to assemble anything smaller than an individual molecule.
And with four independently rotating axles, built-in suspension, and oversized wheels, it looks more like a racer in the DARPA Challenge than any car on route 95. With its rotating axles, the Nanocar moves directionally, which means either forward or backward, with its wheels rolling, as opposed to sliding back and forth which is commonly done on the nanoscale. The oversized wheels and suspension allow the Nanocar to drive over positive and negative atomic steps, or nanoscale speedbumps and potholes, if you will, necessary for even the thin layer of gold that was used in Tour's experiments, which can resemble the mountainous surface of the moon.
6-Wheeled Nanocar Variant
But why build a Nanocar? For bottom-up fabrication, of course. The Nanocar was built to transport cargo across a nanoscale surface, which has always been difficult to do gracefully. This cargo could then be used for fabrication on the nano level. For example, a fleet of Nanocars could carry the materials necessary to build a computer chip on a silicon wafer, and deposit them in the appropriate location. According to Tour, this provides a more graceful strategy for chip fabrication, and should enable more precise construction and fewer defects.
The Nanocar will be only slightly larger than the cargo it carries. Why? "We're taking our cue from biology," Tour explains, since a transporter tends to be roughly the same size as the particle it carries. Each unit of hemoglobin, for example, is about the same size as the molecule of oxygen it carries around your body.
The next Nanocar will have its own internal motor. Tour and his group have already produced such a motor, which is powered by photons of light -- but they have yet to power a Nanocar with it. Nature never supplies a single molecule with its own power source, acknowledges Tour, so a powered Nanocar breaks completely new ground.
Honda was so impressed with Tour's research that it recently awarded them with the Honda Initiation Grant, a prize worth $50,000, to further their nano technology studies. According to Tour, Honda is interested in understanding nanoscale componentry and bottom-up fabrication. Honda was unavailable for comment prior to press time.
Are nanoscale traffic jams on the horizon? Probably not. But if you watch the movie (15MB AVI) Tour and his team recorded, you will see the first Nanocar collision in history. (Hint: The Nanocar looks like four light dots traveling across the field. Keep an eye on the two Nanocars in the top-left portion of the movie.) No word, yet, as to whether either car was insured by a nanoscale Gecko.
And the best part about a Nanocar, according to all of us at TechnoRide.com? By the laws of quantum mechanics, it's impossible to shave off part of an atom. Since the wheels are atomic, unlike your set of Firestone tires, they will never wear out. Now, if we could only fit the nanoscale seatbelt around our waists.
Introducing the nanocar.
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