Finally, a car that's easy to parallel park! These awesome nanocars (and nanotrucks!) with actual moving parts are made from large molecular building blocks, including wheels made from buckyballs. Although they are far too small to see with the naked eye, researchers hope to eventually use them to transport "nanocargo" (atoms and molecules) across surfaces. We, on the other hand, hope that a Nanocar Indy500 is not far away!
Synthesis of single-molecule nanocars. "The drive to miniaturize devices has led to a variety of molecular machines inspired by macroscopic counterparts such as molecular motors, switches, shuttles, turnstiles, barrows, elevators, and nanovehicles. Such nanomachines are designed for controlled mechanical motion and the transport of nanocargo. As researchers miniaturize devices, they can consider two complementary approaches: (1) the "top-down" approach, which reduces the size of macroscopic objects to reach an equivalent microscopic entity using photolithography and related techniques and (2) the "bottom-up" ...
