The World’s Smallest Engine Runs on a Single Atom

10 years ago | Posted in: Technology | 520 Views

Like the one in your car, Johannes Roßnagel’s engine is a four-stroke. In four steps it compresses and heats, then expands and cools. And as with any other engine, this cycle is repeated over and over again—transforming the changing temperature into mechanical energy.

But Roßnagel’s engine is no V-8. And it doesn’t use internal combustion. Roßnagel, an experimental physicist at the University of Mainz in Germany, has conceived of and is in the process of building the world’s tiniest engine, less than a micrometer in length. It is a machine so small it runs on a single atom. And in a recent paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, its inventors argue that, because of an interesting anomaly of quantum physics, this is also far and away the most efficient engine. see more

Source: popularmechanics.com

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