Scientists
have developed the world’s tiniest engine – just a few billionths of a meter in
size – which is powered by light and may help develop nano-machines that can
navigate in water sense the environment around the, or even enter living cells
to fight disease. The prototype device is made of tiny charged particles of
gold, bound together with temperature-responsive polymers in the form of a gel.
When the
‘nano-engine’ is heated to a certain temperature, it stores large amounts of
elastic energy in a fraction of a second, as the polymer coatings expel water
from the gel and collapse. “Now we can use light to power a piston engine at
the nanoscale,” said Ventsislac Valev, now based at the University of Bath.
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