It may sound like something out of a science-fiction movie, but researchers have developed an engine that is just a few billionths of a metre in size.
Researchers at Cambridge University have created the prototype that uses light as a source of power, as well as gold. Such miniscule machines are called “nano-machines.”
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The engines the researchers developed are comprised of charged particles of gold, which are then bound together using a water-laden type of gel. The nano-engine is then heated with a laser (the light source), releasing stored energy in a fraction of a second. When this occurs, the coatings lose all their water, making the nano-particles of gold bind together in clusters.
After the gold is clumped together, it is then cooled, which releases the water, pushing the gold particles apart.
“It’s like an explosion,” said Tao Ding from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, the paper’s primary author. “We have hundreds of gold balls flying apart in a millionth of a second when water molecules inflate the polymers around them.”
While the process may sound complicated, it’s actually considered a simple process, an energy-efficient one and one that is bio-compatible. This bio-compatibility means that the tiny engines can possibly be inserted into living human cells to combat diseases.
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