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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.'"
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.
Now all they need is a microscopic diver to go off this diving board.
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.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
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.
If you can read this, you are most likely close enough.
an ensey-weensy Slinky.
"look, it's walking!"
"I can't see anything..."
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
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).
there are sites dedicated to Investing in nanotechnology.
www.nanoinvestornews.com
Lets get small.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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
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?
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.
- learn mathematics - shoot dope -
Like shockabsorbers for nanocars.
Retractable ball-point nanopens.
And perhaps the best, what rolls down nanostairs, alone or in pairs, the nanoslinky.
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?
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
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 ?
*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
- undoware.ca
power of light to create mechanical energy
Isn't it like solar car racing...on a really small scale? Eh? Something like this?
Hooray Beer!!!
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
"I wouldn't want little nano robots being controled by some 12 year old script kitty"
I agree completely.
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
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.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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?
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Behold: the power of cheese.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
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
Now, shine a light through the transparent surface. The brighter the light, the more the mirror bends.
You can use this two ways
-
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.
-
Suitably adjust the light intensity
through the transparent layer, and you have
dynamically controlled mirror optics.
Just thought I'd share that.And plants have been doing it for millennia...
Read the article. This is the first time we have converted light directly into mechanical energy at the microscopic level.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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.
... the heck did they attach the molecule? Molecular glue? A _very_ small nail? Those tiny moving things scare me.
Quod in aeternum cubet mortuum non est,
Et saeculis miris actis etiam Mors perierit
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.)
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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...
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.
At the molecular scale, there is no difference between chemistry and physics. That's what chemistry is - moving around atoms and groups thereof.
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.
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.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
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.
Laser tweezers
, of course, it begs the question as to whether the machine is minaturised is the power source is macroscopic.
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.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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?
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.