Nanotechnology Harnesses the Power of Light

madirish2600 writes "There's a Washington Post story running about some German scientists who have used light to create a nanotechnology spring. 'Scientists have for the first time used the power of light to create mechanical energy for a microdevice, making a single molecule of plastic drive a tiny machine.'"

Comments

can they be hacked?

[RealisticWeb.com]

Great, now lets just hope what ever os they use is secure, I wouldn't want little nano robots being controled by some 12 year old script kitty. Or maybe these could be implanted into digital media to disable your computer if you pirated any software?

Re:Why the `` quotes

[doooras]

there was a quotation inside the post, at the end there aren't two double-quotes, there's a single quote and a double quote.

Tiny little guy

[MrMadnutz]

Now all they need is a microscopic diver to go off this diving board.

Re:Tiny little guy

[n9hmg]

I think I've had these for a long time. Whenever i'm working in a dark room by the light of the CRT and my wife suddenly flips the light switch , I jump.

The designers should get with Rube Goldberg

[Zen Mastuh]

Slightly off-topic, but imagine the merging of this technology with the whimsical, counter-intuitive machines of Rube Goldberg. The nanosprings could be combined with nanoballs, nanochutes, nanoratchets, nanopteradactyls, etc... to fabricate imaginative contraptions that would only be visible to high-power microscopes.

Re:The designers should get with Rube Goldberg

[spagma]

yeah, just think with all those nanosprings, and nanoballs, we can build a nanopinball game. Anyone up for a little (pun intended) tournament?

Re:The designers should get with Rube Goldberg

[Luyseyal]

with the microscope turned off, we're all "deaf dumb blind kid[s]"... but _Who_ can play "a mean pinball"?

Puns you say?!
-l

German scientists?

[hettb]

I will immediately recommend them to the chancellor of the order Pour le mérite. They deserve to be rewarded for their achievements in science!

BTW, does anyone know if this technology could be used as a weapon against the USA during WW3??? (the new axis of evil just sucks ass, IMHO)

kinky!

[SharkPork]

Azobenzene is known for its kinkiness. That made me laugh. After reading the article, I was thinking, "go go gadget" and some Maxwell Smart type things. Or maybe a fiber-optically powered hamster wheel? Is anyone else, at mention of nanotechnology, immediately reminded of MST3k? Speaking of Nanites, how about that one guy on techTV, that does the "Call for Help" segment? He reminds me of a nanite from MST3k every time I see him.

Re:kinky!

[mpweasel]

Baby, why do you always insist on having the strobe light on when we're making love?

The logical conclusion...

[ultramk]

an ensey-weensy Slinky.

"look, it's walking!"
"I can't see anything..."

Re:Why the `` quotes

[PhilHibbs]

I'm not bitching, just curious where this idiom comes from. Anyway, I posted that to the wrong story (should have been the nitrogen fullerenes one).

It's a good thin when ...

[Anonymous Coward]

there are sites dedicated to Investing in nanotechnology.
www.nanoinvestornews.com

Obligatory Steve Martin reference:

[geekoid]

Lets get small.

Re:Why the `` quotes

[querist]

The back quotes are used in TeX and LaTex to allow you to get the pretty quotes that turn the proper way just like professional printers use (or like you get in most modern word processors).

I still find myself doing it from time to time.

nano-Tech

[antitribue]

Sure this whole tiny engine thing is good but I just want to know when this nano-technology is going to make ALL women as hot as 7 OF 9

Re:nano-Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully, it'll be around the same time as slashnerds stop being the approximate shape of Jabba the Hut, or else you still won't get a date.

Re:nano-Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but she's not hot. she has nice tits, yeah, but so do 99% of the pornstars out there. just rent Oral Action 7. Jesus.

Solar?

[Jucius Maximus]

I wonder how feasable this would be in the long term as a replacement for solar panels. How much wattage can you get out of a square meter of light exposed surface?

Re:Solar?

[n9hmg]

Little magnets mounted on the spring, in little coils, changing the light path to the spring by their own movement? I like it. A huge field (huge=1cm**2) all making high-frequency AC, rectified and combined. DC with a blue-noise component.
Unfortunately, at a working life under 24h, they'd be even less cost-effective than modern silicon cells.

Re:Solar?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same idea, but what I don't understand is why they would only last for 24 hours? Would the light chemicaly change the molecule? How could this "change" happen slowly? I mean, if light would, what, knock off some electrons and break the bonds of the molecule, wouldn't this happen all at once? Can the molecule "store" light damage until a certain critical point, and then "break"??

I always thought it was more like muscle fibers. All or nothing, so that, when peroxide goes bad by being left out in the sun, for example, it gradualy changes, chemicaly, but if you "zoomed" in, you'd see molecules either changed or still peroxide...

I guess I don't understand how a single molecular spring could take 24 hours to "break"? Surely they bonds can't get tired in some fashion, right? I mean, water molecules never get tired of exchanging bonds, it pretty much just stays as water unless it's chemicaly changed, no?

*scratches head*

Re:CmdrTaco is a flag desecrator and Anti-Delawari

[micromoog]

That's pretty funny. I'd kinda forgotten Delaware existed, and I guess CmdrTaco did too.

Haven't read the story...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but from the description I get this mental image of a plastic molecule in tiny overalls driving a tractor. Nanotech is so cute!

Optics

[fabjep]

If these things can be tuned to specific frequencies as was suggested, I would think this would have some fun oplications in digital photography miniaturization or transplant retinas or something like that.

Re:Optics

[fabjep]

Rather artificial replacement retinas.

Now they can make all sorts of cool stuff

[Astrorunner]

Like shockabsorbers for nanocars.

Retractable ball-point nanopens.

And perhaps the best, what rolls down nanostairs, alone or in pairs, the nanoslinky.

Tiny motors...

[feloneous cat]

Okay, so now we got the motors, the gears. Now all we need are the wheels, a good nanostereo system and GM can sell cars to bacteria.

These things are all very interesting, but has anyone managed to do anything of use with them?

Re:Tiny motors...

[Analog Squirrel]

In their "Long term research" section, NASA Ames claims to be working on a 10^18 MIPS Babbage-style mechanical computer from nanotubes - perhaps powered by these little nanosprings?

where does the energy comes from ?

[Guignol]

It seems to me that it's not really energy power that creates mechanical energy as in "energy conversion" but rather that light energy triggers something in the molecule.
One specific frequency makes it contract, another one makes it expand itself, behaving then much like a spring and possibly moving a weight or bending a board.
the article is light on details (no pun intended), but I don't feel the light energy, related to its frequency has much to do with the released, or activated mechanical energy, and it seems to me that in fact bending the board might represent more work from the molecule than what the activating light is providing, so I think some energy could be leaked from the molecule itself.
Besides, the article says near the end that the molecule breaks after being used a whole day so that tere is work to be done, which makes me feel that indeed, some energy might be taken from the very molecule to achieve the "spring effect".
But then, what work could they actually do against that ? the destruction of the structure is bound to happen unless the pure photonic energy is used in the experiment (but then, why would it break in the first place, and how would that work ?)
Any chemist or physicist to correct me or explain me how this is working ?

Re:where does the energy comes from ?

[lukesl]

If it weren't energy conversion, you would only be able to bend the board once. Otherwise you would be getting energy from nowhere, or "using up" the molecules. But if you were doing that, the thing would only work for a very short period of time, not a whole day. There are other mechanisms to explain the photodamage to the azobenzene. I don't know anything about this molecule in particular, but in general irreversible light damage occurs through either free radical reactions catalyzed by the light or bumping the electrons up to an energy state where they can fall to two (or more) separate states. One of these is the one you want, and the other one isn't, and each time a certain percentage of the molecules will get stuck there and not work any more.

Re:where does the energy comes from ?

[Guignol]

If it weren't energy conversion, you would only be able to bend the board once. Otherwise you would be getting energy from nowhere, or "using up" the molecules
Hmm yes, it's more or less what I was trying to imagine (if I understood you correctly), a long enough intricated molecule that could lose some electron in some of its parts due to the light, and gaining back the electrons from surrounding atoms, causing it to bend (for some reason)
Then, another frequency would create a similar effect, but to other parts of the molecule, rebalancing it. This could be done again and again, with electrons being exchanged from here to there and back in the molecule, but sooner or later, some of them would be completely lost (ejected from the molecule).
I suppose that when some electrons are partially ejected, the overall electrical balance is still met (neutral) but locally, electromagnetic dipoles are created forcing the molecules "parts" to get closer or farther...

Re:where does the energy comes from ?

[lukesl]

But you're pulling energy out of the system by moving the board, and that energy has to come from somewhere. I don't know enough about the physics of what's really going on, but this is simple conservation of energy. However, I doubt that the force comes from electromagnetic dipoles. I think it's more likely that the light bumps up an electron, causing that atom to have a different type of orbital, bringing it into conjugation with other orbitals, which changes which conformation of the molecule ("long" or "short") is most stable, or something along those lines. But I am not a physicist or physical chemist by any means. However, bumping the electrons up to higher energy orbitals DOES directly convert the energy of that photon into a different form, and those electron orbital changes are the basis for the movement, so this system IS directly transducing the light into mechanical energy.

Re:where does the energy comes from ?

[Guignol]

Yup, that's pretty much what I was trying to say. (sorry I do a bad job to do so)
My point being, (about not transforming energy but rather releasing it, leading sooner or later to a destruction of the molecule) that it's not the energy of the photon that is transformed into mechanical energy (having the same energy out than in thus) but (mechanical) energy released (thank's to the photon).

Pure Sensationalism

[Snafoo]

*Yawn*. Next, after the commercial break:

-Scientists use magnetism to do stuff
-Scientists use gravity to linearly accelerate falling objects
-Scientists harness laws of physics in a creative fashion

Re:Pure Sensationalism

[Anonymous Coward]

"- Scientists use gravity to linearly accelerate falling objects "

WRONG!
Now get out of my physics lab!

Where have I seen this before?

[Hooray Beer]

power of light to create mechanical energy

Isn't it like solar car racing...on a really small scale? Eh? Something like this?

Info about Nanotechnology...

[dwheeler]

Presumably many readers know a little about nanotechnology, but in case you're looking for beginning information about it, here are a few places to look:

1. Nanotechplanet's Nanotechnology FAQ
2. Foresight's FAQ about Molecular Nanotechnology
3. Richard Feynman's ``There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom'' (an old classic that essentially started the field).
4. Engines of Creation (by K. Eric Drexler, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986)

Re:Info about Nanotechnology...

[Saeger]

And below are links to the full texts of Drexler's Engines of Creation, and Unbounding the Future. If you've got the time, they're both great reads, especially since it reads like scifi, but isn't.

• Engines of Creation (by K. Eric Drexler, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986)
• Unbounding the Future (© 1991 by K. Eric Drexler)

--

Re:Info about Nanotechnology...

[Anonymous Coward]

especially since it reads like scifi, but isn't.

Oh yes it is. Drexler is known throughout the scientific community as a crackpot and a fraud. His "molecular nanotechnology" ideas have NO scientific basis. If anyone seriously thinks you can have little robots built out of atoms, then I have a bridge to sell them. There is such a thing as quantumn mechanics and the uncertainty principle, it just isn't possible to make machines out of atoms. SciAm had some good articles debunking his ideas.

RE: Insecure kitty

[plotz]

my cat hasn't quite mastered his keyboarding skills, but probably knows as much about os programming as the avg scriddie

"I wouldn't want little nano robots being controled by some 12 year old script kitty"

I agree completely.

photovoltaic cells?

[Anonymous Coward]

wait this is the first time we've harnesed the power of light? wish people would think before they let their fingers hammer out some inane bullshit.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[uberdave]

Read the article. This is the first time we have converted light directly into mechanical energy at the microscopic level.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[lukesl]

Unless you count bacteriorhodopsin, a photosynthetic protein in certain bacteria. Light energy is used to change the physical shape of the protein and move hydrogen atoms from one side of a membrane to the other. This is direct conversion of light to mechanical energy (although it is not usually used that way), and since the 70's there has been a lot of work with this protein making different sensor arrays and so forth.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[uberdave]

Interesting article, but it seems to me like this is more of a photochemical process than a photomechanical one. Shine a light on the protein, and it absorbs a H+ ion. Remove the light, and an H+ ion comes out the other side.

Besides, I get the impression that this is a naturally occurring substance rather than an artificial mechanical construct.

So... No, I'm not going to count it. (He said confidently, ignoring the fact that he has no say in the matter in the first place.)

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[n9hmg]

At the molecular scale, there is no difference between chemistry and physics. That's what chemistry is - moving around atoms and groups thereof.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[Zurk]

problem is photomechanical processses like this one cause strain and the material breaks in a day. its not (yet) a reusable transfer unless they figure out how to do repairs. could be useful for CDR type applictions though.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[uberdave]

I disagree. Chemistry is about how molecules bond together, how their electron shells intermingle, and how the constituent atoms behave. Physics is about how molecules bump each other about. It is entirely possible for two molecules to collide and rebound off of each other without either molecule changing form. There is no chemical interaction, but there is a physical interaction.

Granted much of it is the same thing, but some of it is not. What we're talking about is one molecule getting shorter, and dragging a chunk of silicon with it, as opposed to a protein which absorbs one H+ ion at one end, and ejects another (different) H+ ion out the other end.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[lukesl]

We're all skating on some thin semantic ice here, but bacteriorhodopsin DOES operate mechanically. It actually does mechanically pick up individual protons and move them from one place to another. The protons are not somehow magically absorbed with new protons being produced on the other side. If you don't believe that, there is a related protein called halorhodopsin that does the same thing with chloride anions.

It's true that these molecules exist in nature, but that doesn't change the fact that people are experimenting with using them for all kinds of completely non-natural things like high-density optical memory, bizarre types of sensors, etc. If you type bacteriorhodopsin into the patent database, there are 197 patents associated with it, and probably half to two-thirds of those are not biological applications. Would you feel differently about the molecule if someone synthesized it using a peptide synthesizer? I don't know if that's been done or not... And I'm not saying that the springboard thing isn't different and potentially more useful, just that bacteriorhodopsin is a molecule people use that directly transduces light energy into mechanical energy.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[uberdave]

Perhaps I am not reading the descriptions of the ion pump process properly. I am not a molecular biochemist, after all, and some of the terminology is making my head spin. However, the descriptions I've read talk about the protonation and deprotonation of substructures of the protein, which sounds to me like the ion becomes part of protein. To my mind, this makes it a chemical process. (Actually, from what I've been able to piece together, the ions are passed from substructure to substructure within the protein like buckets in a bucket brigade.)

I think that the point of the article is that this is the first time we have built a photomechanical nanotech device, rather than isolating and utilizing something that mother nature had already put there.

Re:photovoltaic cells?

[lukesl]

Well, I guess it depends who you ask. Although protons technically bond covalently to the atoms of the side chains, very few biochemists would think of that as becoming part of the protein. Plus, the protein is translocating them. Well, in any case, this new thing is a big achievement, and the molecules involved are certainly easier to work with than something like bacteriorhodopsin.

flea circus

[rwa2]

So if they get the diving board to move a filter that switches between the two wavelengths, they can make the nanospring flex cyclically?

Boingy boingy boingy

Re:flea circus

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello?! This was meant as a joke. Please mod it as "funny" and not "insightful".

light, nano, and linux

[tps12]

I'm wondering...what will control these little robots when we finally figure out how to build them?

You know...I think it will look a lot like Linux.

Lots of little units all working together. Reminds me of the daemons of the Linux OS, or the good people who volunteer on OSS projects.

Everything is getting smaller, and that's the way I like it.

Re:light, nano, and linux

[Salsaman]

Damn sure they ain't gonna run Windows XP.

But what about ardvarks?!!

[Thud457]

And hamsters?!
And Fish?!
And female zebras in heat?!

Memory

[jhines0042]

By shining one frequency of light on the device, the team was able to crimp the molecule, causing it to pull the diving board downward - converting light into mechanical energy. When another light frequency was used, the molecule relaxed.

Not quite sure, but if the molecule stays in the kinked or relaxed state absent all light, could they not mount little mirrors on top that would swivel and then use this tech as a massive, persistent, extremely fast, storage mechanism? Sort of like a re-writeable CD but in solid state?

Re:Memory

[MJArrison]

Who said the contraction happened quickly? My guess is that the contraction happens over a few milliseconds and not instantly. This would kinda default any memory applications. Although, here's to hoping :)

Re:Memory

[martyb]

Not quite sure, but if the molecule stays in the kinked or relaxed state absent all light, could they not mount little mirrors on top that would swivel and then use this tech as a massive, persistent, extremely fast, storage mechanism? Sort of like a re-writeable CD but in solid state?

I'll grant you that's an interesting concept. it would be interesting to see what comes of further research! Unfortunately, given the current state of the art, they currently have some trouble with the persistent part:

Gaub acknowledged, however, that his molecular device is not ready for the marketplace. The chief impediment is that the molecule breaks after the experiment runs for a day.

That leads me to wonder what kind of duty cycle they were putting this through. Even if it would not hold up in applications such as RAM, maybe it would be okay for something like flash memory? Also, although they have been able to turn it on/off with different frequencies of light, are those the only stimuli that could cause it to toggle? What about gamma rays and other forms of background radiation?

I have some concerns about addressability, too. It's one thing to have millions of these that can all be turned on or off together with a broad beam of light... but how to do you address a single one of these? That's a single molecule that activates the spring! I'm not saying it's impossible, only that it's a non-trivial task to advance this to the point where its density would rival that of currently available DRAM chips!

The power of light? That's nothing!

[infinite9]

Behold: the power of cheese.

Optical Tweezers (not so new...)

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't exactly new...

This seems to be an application of "optical tweezers". The use of electromagnetic field gradients of a focused spot has been used to uncoil as well as determine the "spring constant" (tension) of single DNA strands.The technique has been fairly common for the past 5 years. All they have done here is attach a large molecule to a diving board. The DNA experiments have already demonstrated "simple machines", although in that case the DNA is the spring.

DNA molecules grafted on silicon with optical tweezers
Femtonewton Force Spectroscopy of Single Extended DNA Molecules

Use them to make light amplifying mirrors.

[jrifkin]

How about this ... Make each "diving board" a shiny mirror, and arrange them on top of transparent flat surface to create one large mirror.

Now, shine a light through the transparent surface. The brighter the light, the more the mirror bends.

You can use this two ways

1. Project an image through the transparent bottom layer. The projected image will be reproduced by the reflected light off the mirrored top. Its an image amplifier. Something like those TI (?) chips they use in video projectors, only it amplifies light directly.
   
   
2. Suitably adjust the light intensity through the transparent layer, and you have dynamically controlled mirror optics.

Just thought I'd share that.

Use of light on the molecular level..

[batquux]

And plants have been doing it for millennia...

How ...

[m4ik]

... the heck did they attach the molecule? Molecular glue? A _very_ small nail? Those tiny moving things scare me.

Anyone heard of a Crooke's Radiometer?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question239.htm

It spins around being only powered by light (well heat from light)

One Step Closer to Gray Goop

[Skwidd]

Maybe I'll be looking into that Russian space shuttle for sale afterall. Wonder if I could get some Tang and space rations as an upgrade...

Part of that is just plain impossible.

[n9hmg]

I would expect that at that scale, the electrostatic attraction of even a single-electron imbalance would be stronger than gravity, and keep the balls from rolling or sliding.

I wonder..

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can "twist" these into a "rope", or some kind of macrosubstance that will contract when you shine light on it of a particular frequency.

It might give us a way to transmit energy over distances - shine a laser on a bank of these things to generate mechanical energy, which then drives a dynamo.

Probably wouldn't be particularly efficient, though.

It's emerging.

[The Living Fractal]

Long ago, in our terms, like 50 years, people could barely conceive nanotechnology.

Now look at this..

Nanotech has emerged in everyday surroundings: the newest sub-micron chip-lithography's smallest elements exist on the nanotech scale.

Now we have pioneers. Like these scientists who have harnessed the power of light in a controllable way, on a very small scale.

Can you conceive, perceive, or believe what this implies?

Just try getting past the first part.

Not the first

[tony_gardner]

These guys have been doing it for a while:

Laser tweezers

, of course, it begs the question as to whether the machine is minaturised is the power source is macroscopic.

Engine?

[mOdQuArK!]

I wonder, if you just let ordinary white light fall on the molecule, does it keep on bouncing wildly as it gets hit by different photons of the frequencies of light that it is sensitive to?