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

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.

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?

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.

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 ?

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!

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