Synthetic mini-motor with enormous power developed: Hope for use in the organism

Bacteria as a role model: Conversion of chemical energy into rotational energy at the supramolecular level for the first time

19-Sep-2024 - Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed an artificial motor at the supramolecular level that can develop impressive power. This wind-up motor is a tiny ribbon made of special molecules. When energy is applied, this ribbon aligns itself, moves like a small fin and ...

Muscles for soft robots inspired by nature

Materials researchers significantly improve the performance of hydrogel actuators

08-Sep-2023 - Robots made of metal and other solid materials are already widely used in industry. But they are too rigid and cumbersome for fine-motor activities and interaction with people, such as in nursing or medicine. Intensive research is therefore already being carried out into robots made of soft ...

Microswimmers move like moths to the light

Impressive behavior of synthetic microswimmers studied

30-Nov-2020 - The Freigeist group at TU Dresden, led by chemist Dr Juliane Simmchen, has studied an impressive behavior of synthetic microswimmers: as soon as the photocatalytic particles leave an illuminated zone, they flip independently and swim back into the light. This promising observation and its ...

Towards a light driven molecular assembler

Chemists at Kiel University built the first artificial molecular machines that performs synthesis

25-Jul-2019 - Chemists usually synthesize molecules using stochastic bond-forming collisions of the reactant molecules in solution. Nature follows a different strategy in biochemical synthesis. The majority of biochemical reactions are driven by machine-type protein complexes that bind and position the ...

Novel approach to self-assembling mobile micromachines

27-Jun-2019 - Building a robot with many different components is a challenging task, even more so at the micro scale. Very convenient, if the parts self-assemble. The self-assembly of particles is nothing new. In fact, it has been achieved for decades. Magnetic particles interacting under rotating magnetic ...

Piecework at the nano assembly line

Fast computer control for molecular machines

22-Jan-2018 - Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a novel electric propulsion technology for nanorobots. It allows molecular machines to move a hundred thousand times faster than with the biochemical processes used to date. This makes nanobots fast enough to do assembly line ...

Microrobots learn from ciliates

A swimming microrobot formed from liquid-crystal elastomers is driven by a light-induced peristaltic motion

24-Feb-2016 - Ciliates can do amazing things: Being so tiny, the water in which they live is like thick honey to these microorganisms. In spite of this, however, they are able to self-propel through water by the synchronized movement of thousands of extremely thin filaments on their outer skin, called cilia. ...