For the first time, a team of German and French experts has not only moved wheels as short as a nanometer-scale on a surface but also observed this movement.
Experts from the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and Toulouse, France’s Center for Material Alibration and Structural Studies have developed carbon molecules that are only 0.8 nanometers wide and look like a pair of wheels, while the two nano-wheels There was also a molecular axis (axle) between the two that connected the two.
Interestingly, when an attempt was made to move these pairs of nano-wheels on a very smooth surface of copper with the help of a scanning tunneling microscope (STEM), they moved in a vertical direction.
While he remained silent on applying parallel force to the dhara. That is to say, their movement was exactly the same as that of the daily wheels connected to each other by the axle.
Leonard Grill, head of the German team at the team, said the ability of nano-wheels to move in only one particular direction is very useful, as it could also be used to build more complex nano-scale machines.
Reference: Nature Nanotechnology