Sunday, April 16, 2006

Smallest car



The smallest car made out of a single molecule and it has a chassis, axles and a pivoting suspension. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. The whole car is no more than 4 nanometers across and slightly wider than a strand of DNA. To see the perspective, human hair is about 80,000 nanometers thick. At room temperature, strong electrical bonds hold the buckyball wheels tightly against the gold, but heating to about 200 degrees Celesius frees them to roll. Its use - to build tiny trucks that could carry atoms and molecules around in minature factories. As you can see this is one car you cannot drive!

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