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New Light-Activated Micro-Motor

Posted by timothy on from the does-not-play-ogg-files dept.

enkidu55 writes: "This link to Popular Science's website shows how a team of scientists in Germany have found that a certain polymer changes shape when hit with different wavelengths of light. They used this to stretch and compress a small spring sort of like the piston in a motor. Still pretty raw, but the potential is amazing."

1 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Gee, taking light and converting it... by jaydho · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Boy wouldn't that be something, to take the light from and convert it into something else?!

    Boy too bad instead of moving small springs we can't convert light into something immediately useful like electricity.

    Written in Colorado at 10,500ft elevation in a home powered by solar electricity (8 of our panels are older than me and have lost less than 25% or so of their original capacity during the last 20 years.) Transmitted via two way Starband satellite internet.