World's smallest electric motor

This is an illustration of the world's smallest electric motor, just a billionth of a meter across. Tufts University chemists constructed the nanomotor from a single butyl methyl sulphide molecule on a sulphur atom rotor. From the BBC:

The tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope - a tiny pyramid with a point just an atom or two across - was used to funnel electrical charge into the motor, as well as to take images of the molecule as it spun. It spins in both directions, at a rate as high as 120 revolutions per second. But averaged over time, there is a net rotation in one direction. By modifying the molecule slightly, it could be used to generate microwave radiation or to couple into what are known as nano-electromechanical systems, Dr Sykes said. "The next thing to do is to get the thing to do work that we can measure - to couple it to other molecules, lining them up next to one another so they're like miniature cog-wheels, and then watch the rotation propagation down the chain," he said.

"Electric motor made from a single molecule"

• [kmoser]

  First project: world’s smallest Babbage Engine.

• [royaltrux]

  Second project: vibrator for near-future ear canal phone. 

• [cymk]

  Wouldn’t this qualify as a nanobot? Or at the very least a nanomachine? Grey goo here we come!

• [Christian Weller]

  Richard Feynman owes them a thousand dollars

• [Guest]

  hmmmm. Many motors can be converted to generators. Hmmm.

• [Spriggan_Prime]

  I for one, welcome our new butyl methyl sulphide molecule on a sulphur atom rotor powered overlords.

• [gratefulvideo]

  This makes me giddy.  I hope to live long enough to see nanotechnology really take off and change the world.  I believe it will.

• [John Vance]

  It’s a component of a possible nanobot, yes. And as a motor, it would qualify as a very rudimentary machine. But I wouldn’t expect nanobots *or* “grey goo” any time soon; the fact that this uses an STM tip as the electrode is a non-trivial problem. A lot of refinement will be required before this becomes even remotely useful.

  Besides, a nanobot that randomly started ecophagizing is no more likely than your car suddenly going feral and running off to live in the woods and eat leaves.

  Edit: in response to cmyk above.

  • [cymk]

    I’m still going to keep my car chained up in the back yard just in case.

• [Jakob Drud]

  “The tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope – a tiny pyramid with a point just an atom or two across”

  Is it just me, or wouldn’t it seem that if you build something on that scale you know *exactly* how many atoms you have at the point?

  • [AlexG55]

    You don’t build STM tips, you make them by pulling a wire so it breaks in a certain way using wirecutters and pliers.
    This guy was able to build a (very crude) functioning STM at home for under $100:
    http://www.geocities.com/spm_stm/index.html

    • [Jakob Drud]

      I stand edified. A nice feeling, as it happens ;-)

• [Camp Freddie]

  I’m not entirely sure I understand this since it’s both super-simple and somewhat unexpected (based on my graduate-level chemistry). On the one hand, it seems like an incredibly simple molecule dumped on a copper plate, not some amazing feat of chemistry.
  I’m guessing the real story is that they were able to measure the rotation, since “molecule/ligand rotates in electric field” is pretty much what any molecule should do based on classical physics (applying an electric field perpendicular to the magnetic field of an object). You should be able to do this with almost any molecule.Missing from the article is the explanation of why it rotates, or rather why it rotates in both directions but favours one over the other. I’m curious to know if they can make the favoured rotation consistent. Based on stereochemistry, it should be random as to whether it co-ordinates to copper in a clockwise or anti-clockwise favouring position.

  Have they published their findings? I’d be interested to read them.