Rotors for Future Nanomachines Modeled at Rice

Investigators at the Rice University, in the United States, announce that they were recently able to model tiny, nanoscale rotors, that could be used in the future to set the basis for advanced nanomachines. The achievement already elicited a lot of interest among academics.

The team created an animation which shows a model of a device that is powered by atoms. The small structures push and turn a central hub sporting a wheel. The number of potential applications for such a device are mind-boggling.

Currently, there is a drive towards extreme miniaturization, especially among producers of electronic components. The Rice group believes that its innovation could be of help here.

An additional use could also save lives, they add, if the future devices will be inserted into tiny repair systems. These could be injected into tumor cells or bacterial biofilm, breaking them apart from the inside, and curing a wide variety of diseases.

“This is no cartoon. It's a real molecule, with all the interactions taking place correctly,” explains Rice associate professor of chemistry Anatoly Kolomeisky, who played an important role in developing the new animation.

Together with Rice graduate student Alexey Akimov, Kolomeisky published the details of the team's findings in the latest issue of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

What the team did was basically establish the ground rules governing the motions of molecules when they are attached to a nanoscale rotor built on a gold surface. The group could not construct the test devices proper, so the experts decided to run in-depth simulations of the physical phenomena at work.

The motions described in the new investigation are very common in nature, the team leader explains. One good example is the flagella on bacteria, which are cellular components that use very basic roto motions to propel the cell through liquids.

“When the flagella turn clockwise, the bacteria move forward. When they turn counterclockwise, they tumble,” explains Kolomeisky. The precious enzyme ATP-synthase, in the human body, also uses the same rotor motions in its current operations.

Controlling molecular rotors could lead to the development of machines capable of operating at very small scales, such as for example radio filters capable of letting pass only very finely-tuned signals.

“It would be an extremely important, though expensive, material to make. But if I can create hundreds of rotors that move simultaneously under my control, I will be very happy,” the Rice professor concludes.

Funding for the new investigation came from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Welch Foundation.