The design of nanotechnology is to surmount down the machinery used in everyday life history , for control and fake the nano - world just as well as we manipulate things our own size . And this latest ontogenesis is a breakthrough of microscopic ratio : the single - particle locomotive .
German investigator were capable to successfully manufacture a individual - atom heat engine , and it could be the modest heat locomotive ever work up . The researcher also evaluate its energy output , 3.4 x 10 - 22watts , which by mass would make it equivalent to a distinctive car engine ( 1.5 kilowatts per kilogram ) in terminus of power . The results were published in the journalScience .
heating system engines win over thermal energy into mechanical zip , a technological advancement that started the Industrial Revolution . During the past decade or so , there ’s been a focus on miniaturisation with the construction of smaller and smaller thermal machines .
Johannes Roßnagel and colleague designed the individual - atom engine to behave like a full - exfoliation locomotive engine . They take a calcium ion and trap it so that it could move solely along one axis . It was then subject to two unlike temperatures , being cooled down by a laser beam while being heat by an oscillatory electric field . The temperature difference beget motion along the detached bloc that was like to the apparent movement of a piston in an railway locomotive .
Talking to IFLScience , Dr. Roßnagel discussed the proficient sophistication necessary to accomplish this result . " The obstruction have been both of a technical nature and of a conceptual nature , " he said . " We need electronics with very low haphazardness [ interference ] , a television camera with the curt pic multiplication ( 700 nanoseconds ) , very good vacuum conditions , high control of the electric fields in the yap , and a high quality optical maser system . "
" The important point is the gamey point of control that is ask to execute the engine , and , perhaps even more significantly , to register out the country ( such as the temperature , energy , and position ) of the atom , " he impart .
The engine has an efficiency of 0.28 percent , meaning only 0.28 percent of the total vim is converted into utile work . The result might seem terrible ( the typical railway car railway locomotive has an efficiency of about 25 to 30 percent ) , but it is in agreement with theoretic expectations .
The single - atom engine has the potential to play a pregnant role in both applied and theoretic physics . Single - speck engines could power nanoscale technologies and even allow scientists to construct single - molecule refrigerators . The researchers do n’t think there will be a direct " day-by-day use " of this technology , though .
" A whole science laboratory of lasers , electronics , and vacuity chambers is need to run this single particle railway locomotive , " noted Dr. Roßnagel . " However , we do fundamental research and judge to get a better apprehension of the thermodynamics of single particles .
" This meliorate sympathy can ( and will , I ’m confident ) lead to a next generation of experiments and future gadget which have interesting app . "
