Related papers: Microscopic Engine Powered by Critical Demixing
Microengines have shown promise for a variety of applications in nanotechnology, microfluidics and nanomedicine, including targeted drug delivery, microscale pumping, and environmental remediation. However, achieving precise control over…
The miniaturization of mechanical machines is critical for advancing nanotechnology and reducing device footprints. Traditional efforts to downsize gears and micromotors have faced limitations at around 0.1 mm for over thirty years due to…
Understanding the operation of biological molecular motors, nanoscale machines that transduce electrochemical energy into mechanical work, is enhanced by bottom-up strategies to synthesize novel motors.
The realization of microscopic heat engines has gained a surge of research interest in statistical physics, soft matter, and biological physics. A typical microscopic heat engine employs a colloidal particle trapped in a confining…
Designing a miniature microscale engine that can override the role of thermal fluctuations has remained elusive and is an important open challenge. Here we provide the design and theoretical framework for a unique information-based engine -…
Nature has developed striking light-powered proteins such as bacteriorhodopsin, which can convert light energy into conformational changes for biological functions. Such natural machines are a great source of inspiration for creation of…
We study microscopic engines that use a single active particle as their "working medium". Part of the energy required to drive the directed motion of the particle can be recovered as work, even at constant temperature. A wide class of…
Microscopic heat engines are microscale systems that convert energy flows between heat reservoirs into work or systematic motion. We have experimentally realized a minimal microscopic heat engine. It consists of a colloidal Brownian…
In systems possessing spatial or dynamical symmetry breaking, Brownian motion combined with symmetric external input signals, deterministic or random, alike, can assist directed motion of particles at the submicron scales. In such cases,…
While most of the studies on molecular machines have been performed in solution, interfacing these supramolecular systems with solid-state nanostructures and materials is very important in view of their utilization in sensing components…
Biological motors are marvels of nature that inspire creation of their synthetic counterparts with comparable nanoscale dimensions, high efficiency and diverse functions. Molecular motors have been synthesized, but obtaining nanomotors…
We introduce a new class of optical micromotors driven by the spin-orbit interaction of light and spin-driven fluid flows leading to simultaneous rotation and revolution of the micromotors. The micromotors are essentially birefringent…
We introduce a new approach to build microscopic engines on the atomic scale that move translationally or rotationally and can perform useful functions such as pulling of a cargo. Characteristic of these engines is the possibility to…
There are many exotic thermodynamic processes that are hard to study in nature. Here, we synthesize a structured environment to explore the extremes of thermodynamics. We present an engine running at extreme temperatures of above ten…
Biological functions in each animal cell depend on coordinated operations of a wide variety of molecular motors. Some of the these motors transport cargo to their respective destinations whereas some others are mobile workshops which…
Modern technologies could soon make it possible to investigate the operation cycles of quantum heat engines by counting the photons that are emitted and absorbed by their working systems. Using the quantum jump approach to open-system…
Enzymes are nano-scale machines that have evolved to drive chemical reactions out of equilibrium in the right place at the right time. Given the complexity and specificity of enzymatic function, bottom-up design of enzymes presents a…
Cell is the structural and functional unit of life. This Resource Letter serves as a guide to the literature on nano-machines which drive not only intracellular movements, but also motility of the cell. These machines are usually proteins…
Molecular machines consist of either a single protein or a macromolecular complex composed of protein and RNA molecules. Just like their macroscopic counterparts, each of these nano-machines has an engine that "transduces" input energy into…
Even microscopic engines have hitherto been defined to require macroscopic elements such as heat reservoirs, but here we observe that what makes engines useful is energy transfer across a large ratio of dynamical time scales…